


Of All The Gin Joints In All The World

by texaswatermelon



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texaswatermelon/pseuds/texaswatermelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>A retelling and reworking of some key events of ME1, with a femslashy twist. Abigaile Shepard: Vanguard, Colonist, Ruthless. Renegon, because I don’t believe that anyone is completely impenetrable and incapable of change. Rating for language and content. FemShep/Ashley.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
> **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I’ve come at it from a slightly different angle. I’ll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn’t like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta’d. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy’s, “Of All the Gin Joints in All the World.”

_I am an arms dealer_  
 _fitting you with weapons  
_ _in the form of words_

_and, don't really care_  
 _which side wins_  
 _long as the room keeps singing,  
_ _that's just the business I'm in_

_this ain't a scene,  
_ _it's a goddamn arms race_

_Fall Out Boy, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race"_

xx

This is such a bad idea.

Kaiden Alenko was never one for tempting the fates, but right now he's on his way to provoking them entirely, and he's not pleased. Shepard's already in a pissy mood this week after that snafu with the krogan mercenaries on Eletania, resulting in them having to dock at the Citadel for the next few days and listen to Udina bitch endlessly about damaging government property. Then she lost that bet with Joker over the Alien Wrestling Universal Tournament… And now Alenko has to be the one to go wake her from her few precious hours of sleep early to inform her that a pompous turian Spectre is going to invade and inspect her ship. If he survives, Alenko's going to kill Captain Anderson for making him do this.

Shepard's room is dark except for the dim blue glow from the status screen on the wall. Alenko can hear heavy breathing coming from the corner, where he can just barely make out her bed. As he approaches, he sees the small lump that is Commander Abigaile Shepard, sleeping softly. She has the most peaceful expression he's ever seen on her usually hardened face, making her appear about twenty years younger than normal. It's so strange to see her so tiny and curled up, almost vulnerable, that he almost doesn't have the heart to wake her.

Before he can reach out to shake her, Shepard's eyes snap open very suddenly, glinting emerald green even in the dim light. There is instantly a pistol in her hand, materializing from what seems like nowhere, and she's out of bed with the gun shoved in Alenko's face before he even has time to take a startled breath.

"It's just me, Commander," he gasps with alarm. "Lieutenant Alenko."

For the briefest of moments, Alenko truly believes that she's going to pull the trigger and end his life. There's absolutely no hint of recognition in her eyes. Then, with what looks like reluctance, she lowers the pistol so that it hangs limply at her side. Alenko exhales deeply and his lungs burn with relief.

"What the hell are you doing sneaking around my quarters in the dark like some kind of pervert, Lieutenant?" Shepard asks with obvious annoyance, raking a hand through her long, tangled hair.

"Sorry, Commander," Alenko says, cheeks burning hotly. "Captain Anderson wanted me to wake you. We have a guest coming on board today."

As he speaks, Shepard reaches across her bed to hit the lights. The room is illuminated instantly with obnoxiously bright fluorescent bulbs. Shepard squints against them.

"It's not that damn ambassador, is it? Because if I have to hear his whining voice for an entire day again, I'll murder him before he even steps through the hatch."

Her voice is gruff as she begins to tug on her jump suit. Alenko turns around to give her some privacy, but she hardly notices or cares. She's spent too long being surrounded by men in the Alliance to be self-conscious. It also doesn't help that she's completely oblivious to the fact that Alenko has feelings for her.

"No ma'am," he answers anxiously. "It's a Spectre, a turian named Nihlus Kryik. He's inspecting the  _Normandy_ , I think."

He turns around when he hears her lacing up her boots, just in time to see the incredulous look on her face morph into anger.

"When is he arriving?" she asks, her voice dangerously even.

Alenko glances at his omni-tool. "In a few minutes, ma'am," he replies.

Shepard finishes lacing up her boots at record speed, pulling at the laces furiously. She equips almost all of her gear except her hard suit, including the pistol that had been a threat to Alenko's life only moments ago. All the while she mutters angrily about the captain and people letting her do her job in peace, various obscenities intermixed in several languages—human and alien alike.

When she's finished, she storms out of the room. Alenko hesitates for a few seconds before deciding it's in his best interest to follow. Shepard is already halfway up the stairs to the upper deck when he catches up with her.

"Why is it always me they bother?" she growls.

Alenko isn't sure if she's asking him specifically, but he answers anyway.

"Because you're Commander Shepard."

"Yeah, well someone else should be Commander fucking Shepard for a while."

Alenko grimaces and holds the door open for her.

They find Captain Anderson in the cockpit, informing Joker of their course for the day. They have to give the Spectre a full view of how the ship works on a daily basis, and it just so happens that they have a simple transport job to take care of on the human colony of Eden Prime.

Shepard stops abruptly in front of them, her boots clanging loudly on the metal floor to alert them all of her arrival. Alenko has to steady himself on the wall to keep from running into her.

"Since when is it protocol to give me a two second warning that aliens are going to be invading my ship for the day?" she demands loudly.

Joker smirks, clearly amused by Shepard's intense annoyance.

"Good morning to you, too, Shepard," Anderson replies sternly, not quite as tickled by her tone. Shepard merely glares, arms crossed over her chest defensively. "Nihlus was just on a mission for the Council and I wasn't sure if he was going to make it today until just recently."

"Oh really?" Shepard asks with mock interest. "Well that's funny because I wasn't aware that there was even a discussion about this visit until ten minutes ago when  _Alenko_ told me."

"It would behoove you to watch your tone, Commander, and to remember that  _I_  am the captain of this ship, not you," Anderson booms, towering over the short commander.

Shepard bristles.

"Behoove me?" she snaps, fists tightening into balls.

She takes a breath, about to unleash a rant that will last for hours and likely get her suspended, but Alenko places a gentle hand on her shoulder. She whips around to look at him and he shakes his head warningly. Shepard lets out an exasperated breath.

"Fine. When will the Spectre be arriving,  _Captain_?"

"He should be here very soon. I want you to treat him with respect, Commander. This visit could be very important for you," Anderson warns.

"Thrilling, I'm sure," she mutters, but only Alenko hears and his hand tightens on her shoulder. "I suppose I'd better go freshen up then. Wouldn't want to look to unkempt for our honorable guest," she says loudly, and with that she turns around and stomps off.

Anderson shakes his head tiredly as he watches her go. Joker chuckles and turns back to his controls.

xx

The meeting is entirely unceremonious, except for the constant tick in Shepard's temple whenever she thinks about the bullshit that she's being put through this week. Nihlus congratulates her on all of her achievements, especially her victory at Torfan, despite some "truly tragic" losses for the human race. Shepard can tell by the tone of his voice that he doesn't necessarily approve of her tactics, which pleases her greatly. Nevertheless, he's apparently putting her name forward as a recommendation to the Council for the first human Spectre. Shepard wonders what the catch must be.

The trip to Eden Prime will take several hours according to Joker, and luckily Shepard will have most of that time to herself while Nihlus tours the ship. Something about the turian bugs her. She's entirely unclear as to what his purpose is on this mission. He looks ridiculously suspicious as well. He'll disappear for very long periods, long enough that Shepard can almost forget that he's there, but then whenever she's alone it seems he'll turn up again, appearing out of nowhere, and give her some strange turian smirk like he's up to something he shouldn't be.

Of course, she doesn't voice her suspicions to anyone. It's no secret that Abby Shepard strongly distrusts most aliens (and most people in general) as a result of the terror she experienced at the age of sixteen on her home colony of Mindoir. Everyone will just pass it off as paranoia or racism. And maybe it is. But Shepard still believes that something is up.

xx

There's a particularly dangerous encounter just fifteen minutes before the ship is about to make its jump through the mass relay. Shepard is on the lower deck, cleaning her weapons as she usually does before a mission. It's mostly quiet down there, just the noise from the engine room to occupy her thoughts. There's something very soothing to her about the repetitive action of dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling a gun. It's the only time she ever truly experiences peace; even sleep brings nightmares and terror.

Shepard is lost in the act of cleaning her favorite shotgun when she suddenly has the vague impression that she isn't alone. She thinks perhaps it's one of the crewmembers passing through, but as she stops to listen, there's no sound. She continues to clean her gun, keeping an ear out for anyone who thinks they might be funny and play games with her. Shepard hates being snuck up on, and it doesn't happen without consequences to whomever is doing the sneaking.

Just as she clicks the last piece of her shotgun into place, she hears it. It's the tiniest chink of metal, probably completely inaudible to someone who isn't listening for it. Shepard whirls around without pause and, for the second time that day, she shoves a gun in someone's face. This time it's the last possible person who should be on the other side of it.

Nihlus doesn't even flinch. He looks brazenly down the barrel of the gun at Shepard, whose eyes are darkened with malevolence.

"Easy there, Commander. We don't want any accidents happening, do we?" the turian says calmly.

"I don't call defending myself an accident," Shepard growls, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I don't see a threat here," Nihlus replies.

"I beg to differ," Shepard challenges.

Nihlus smirks.

"It's a shame, the effect Mindoir must have had on you."

Shepard's grip on the gun tightens visibly and a deep growl rumbles in her chest.

"Don't you dare—"

"Attention  _Normandy_ : we'll be entering the mass relay to Eden Prime in about five minutes. Be sure to get to a secure location. Joker out."

Both Shepard and Nihlus look up at the sound of the intercom, then back at each other.

"I suppose I should get up there. I'd very much like to see how the  _Normandy_  handles a relay."

For a moment, Shepard remains motionless. Finally, she drops her arm with a disdainful glare. Nihlus nods and takes the lift back to the upper deck.

It takes several deep breaths before Shepard feels like she can follow him without hurting someone. When the lift returns to retrieve her, she slumps back against the wall and closes her eyes. Flashes of gunshots, fire, debris, and destruction cross her mind's eye. She looks around the elevator again and sighs, feeling suddenly very tired. Whatever the captain isn't telling her is causing her a great deal of stress. Spectres don't observe simple shakedown runs. Anderson's hiding something, and Shepard doesn't appreciate being kept out of the loop.

xx

She appears in the cockpit just as Nihlus is giving his approval on their progress. He gives her a nod as he walks past and she tries her best not to cringe when he brushes against her. When she begins paying attention to the background noise, she comes in the middle of Joker and Alenko bickering about something.

"What do you think, Commander?" Joker asks conspiratorially.

Shepard shakes her head to clear it.

"I think you two should shut up," she replies with disinterest.

Joker sighs. "Whatever. I still think something's funny about him."

"Yeah, well until the captain decides to let us in on what this is all about, we're in the dark, so we might as well keep our mouths shut so we don't catch hell," Shepard snaps.

Just as she finishes, Captain Anderson comes in over the comm and demands a status report, followed by Shepard's presence in the comm room. Shepard rolls her eyes.

"Great, Joker, now you pissed him off."

Alenko smirks.

"Yeah, well what else is new?" Joker mutters at Shepard's retreating form.

Shepard makes sure to take her time on the way to the comm room. She allows her short body to carry her as slowly as possible, past Pressly and the map. The XO is complaining about their turian guest much in the same fashion that Joker had been. Shepard decides to ignore him. They'll be at Eden Prime soon enough, and hopefully Nihlus will leave them for some mission of great galactic importance so they can all be rid of him.

Just as she's nearing some sort of doom in the comm room, Doctor Chakwas has the decency to stop her for her input. Standing with her is Jenkins, looking fresh-faced and ready for battle as usual.

"Commander Shepard, please tell the corporal that the more he goes looking for trouble, the more time he spends in my infirmary," she demands, glaring at Jenkins with her arms crossed.

"Aw, come on, Doc! It's not like you don't need something to do anyway," Jenkins reasons.

Chakwas snorts. "I sincerely hope you're joking, Corporal," she says, her accent flaring up with her anger.

"Come on, Commander, you know how it is, bein' in the heat of the action. It's a rush, right?" Jenkins appeals to her enthusiastically.

"She's right, kid," Shepard says darkly. "The minute you go asking for trouble, you end up getting more than you bargained for. If you just sit back and wait patiently, there's plenty of stuff in the galaxy to keep you occupied, and at least then you'll be ready when it comes."

"Easy for you to say. Everyone already knows what you can do," Jenkins protests.

"It's not always candies and flowers having everyone know who you are, Jenkins. They come to expect a lot out of you, and sometimes you can't live up to it. Sometimes you've got to let them down."

With that, Shepard walks toward the comm room. Even as she does, she can hear Jenkins expressing his hope that their time on Eden Prime doesn't take  _too_  long. Shepard just shakes her head and walks through the door.

xx

An hour later, Shepard straps on her hardsuit, preparing for action. What had begun as a pissing contest between her and Nihlus in the comm room (with Anderson acting as mediator and mostly on the turian's side, much to Shepard's annoyance) had quickly turned into something else altogether. The transmission from Eden Prime showed the human colony at great risk, and that was all Shepard needed to throw aside her distaste for the alien invasion and get ready for battle.

Nihlus and Alenko are already waiting at the hatch and Jenkins is close behind her, far too excited at the prospect of a fight. Nihlus will scout out ahead, which Shepard both likes and dislikes for the same reason. She doesn't want him out of her sight, and yet she doesn't want to have to defer to him either.

Shepard ignores Anderson when he tells her that survivors are a secondary objective. She'll secure any living humans she finds before moving on. No Council objective is more important than that. After one last check to make sure that everything's secure, she takes a breath and jumps out of the hatch.


	2. The After Life Of The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
> **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_i'm a stitch away_  
 _from making it_  
 _and a scar away  
_ _from falling apart_

_blood cells pixilate_  
 _and eyes dilate  
_ _and the full moon pills  
_ _got me out on the streets  
_ _at night_

_Fall Out Boy, "The (After) Life of the Party"_

xx

If Eden Prime was supposed to be some beautiful paradise, it isn't now. There's debris everywhere and the smell of smoke and blood saturates the air. Maybe they won't have to worry about survivors after all.

They proceed cautiously, dodging the gasbags that, if they _are_  conscious, seem completely oblivious to the obvious destruction here. Shepard can feel Alenko's tension and Jenkins's curiosity behind her. She feels a mix of both, and definitely foreboding. Something has gone terribly wrong here in a very short amount of time.

She doesn't even have time to react when, out of nowhere, a synthetic drone flies out and decimates Jenkins's shields, gunning him to the ground. Shepard and Alenko dive behind a large rock for cover. Alenko uses his omni-tool to disengage the drone's defense systems and takes it down with his pistol. When they're sure the coast is clear, he ducks out from behind the rock and runs to Jenkins, who is unmistakably dead.

"He didn't even have time to defend himself," he says sullenly.

Shepard frowns. She liked Jenkins. He was a good soldier with a lot of potential. This is not a fair end.

"We'll take care of him, but we've got to keep going. I need you to stay focused, Lieutenant, otherwise you'll be next," she tells him, reaching down to grab any extra clips off of Jenkins's body.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Alenko agrees, and refocuses.

They make it barely another mile before they're ambushed again, this time by six drones hiding out behind the trees. Shepard takes a hit to the gut, and though her shield absorbs most of the impact, it still hurts like hell and takes her breath away. Luckily, Alenko's there to cover her until she's able to take out the rest of the drones with a few well-aimed shotgun blasts.

They hear even more shots ahead, and Shepard fears another drone attack. As she and Alenko appear on the hill, however, they can see a distinctly human figure in Phoenix model armor diving for cover. Ahead of her are several large figures with beaming lights on their heads. Shepard is too far away to tell for certain, but they look synthetic. If the human soldiers are hiding from them, then they're definitely enemies. That's all the reason Shepard needs to decisively throw one of them against the nearest rock with devastating force. The creature blows apart with an electric burst, bits of metal and wiring shooting out like shrapnel at its comrades. They duck, alerted to the hostile presence.

"Take them out, Alenko," Shepard orders gruffly. The lieutenant doesn't need to be told twice. He quickly disables them from afar with his omni-tool.

Once the synthetics are lying in a scrap heap on the ground, Shepard storms forward toward the now upright soldier. The woman quickly stands at attention and salutes. She has a strong face—not overtly beautiful, but definitely striking. Her dark brown eyes are clear and alert, totally focused on the situation at hand.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212," she announces, slightly out of breath. Shepard returns the salute so that she can drop her arm.

"At ease, Williams. I'm Commander Abigaile Shepard and this here is Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. I need to know what the hell is going on here."

Ashley shakes her head. "It's a disaster, ma'am. They unearthed some kind of Prothean technology at the dig site down there. My unit was sent to keep an eye on it until someone came to pick it up. We never figured… oh man."

Shepard narrows her eyes. Of course this has to do with that godforsaken beacon. Anderson had told her a little about it before they left. Shepard frankly didn't give a shit; all she'd cared about was securing the colony.

"What happened to the rest of your team, Williams?" Shepard demands. She has a suspicion, one that Ashley unfortunately confirms.

"They're gone, ma'am," she says sadly, casting her eyes down.

Shepard feels for her. She'd seen nearly her entire crew go down at Torfan, and that had been under her own command. It was never easy either way.

"Straighten up, Chief. If they died protecting this colony, then they're all heroes."

Ashley nods.

"Any idea what those things we just took down were?" Alenko questions curiously. He's looking around anxiously as if he half expects a whole army of them to materialize out of the rock formations behind them at any moment. Shepard doesn't blame him. Nothing's certain here.

"You're going to think I'm crazy," Ashley says with wide eyes, "but I think they're geth."

The look that Alenko gives her suggests that he really does think she's crazy.

"The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in over four-hundred years. What would they come out for now? And why here?" he says disbelievingly.

"Isn't it obvious?" Shepard asks, casting her gaze toward the dig site. "Fucking beacon."

Ashley nods her agreement.

There's no point in discussing it any further. They still need to meet up with Nihlus and find the beacon, if the geth haven't already taken it. Shepard discharges the empty shell from her shotgun.

"Williams, are you sharp enough to fight, or do I need to shove some medi-gel up your ass first?" Shepard asks. She's stood around long enough. She needs to kill something. Violently.

"Ready and able," Ashley responds seriously.

"Good, then I want you with me. You know this area better than I do. Time to go show those flashlight heads that they fucked with the wrong colony."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

xx

It's not easy. By the time they get to the shipping yard, they've already fought through a hundred geth, and several "husks" to boot. Shepard's almost certain that one of the synthetic bastards dislocated her left shoulder. She's already run out of rounds for her shotgun and is required to use her pistol. And now there's a dead turian at her feet. Nihlus. Bastard.

"Great. I bet Anderson's going to blame this one on me, too. Didn't even have the courtesy to wait until I shot him. At least I would have done it to his face," she mutters. Alenko looks at her disapprovingly.

"You know this turian?" Ashley questions.

Shepard ignores her and crouches down to see if there's anything useful on Nihlus's body. A few ammo rounds, some medi-gel, and a credit chit. It'll have to do.

There's a noise, suddenly, coming from the crates in front of them—a not so subtle scuffling of someone coming out of hiding. The three of them ready their weapons, all focused on one spot behind the crates. A body stands up finally, and Shepard is a millimeter away from pulling the trigger before she realizes it's a human.

"Wait, don't shoot!" he shouts in alarm, putting his hands up defensively. Shepard growls and lowers her weapon. Ashley and Alenko follow suit.

"Do you have a death wish, or are you just an asshole?" Shepard barks. "I almost blew your fucking head off."

"I'm sorry, I just… I thought you might be more geth," he says shakily. "My name's Powell."

"I don't give a pyjak's penis what your name is. What did you see while you were hiding like a pussy behind those crates?" Shepard demands.

"Your turian friend," Powell says, gesturing towards Nihlus, "I saw him get shot."

"By who?" Alenko asks.

"Another turian. Saren was his name. Your guy seemed to know him," Powell replies.

Shepard glances at Alenko, but the lieutenant just shrugs.

"Did you see where the turian went?" Ashley asks.

"Took the cargo train to the other platform. That's where they took the beacon. He's probably after it."

"Great," Shepard says abruptly. "Now why don't you carry your sorry ass out of here before I point the next geth I see in your direction."

"I'm just a dockworker," Powell protests. "What do you want from me?"

"Grow some balls," Shepard replies, chucking one of Nihlus's pistols at him. She turns and starts toward the train.

"A little harsh, don't you think, Commander?" Alenko asks once they're on the train.

"I don't have time for cowards, Alenko," is the commander's response.

xx

Alenko manages to neutralize the C4 charges in pretty good time while Shepard and Ashley hold off the onslaught of geth. Shepard likes Ashley so far. She fights with a preciseness and dedication that's rare nowadays, even in the Alliance military. Nothing puts her off, not even the appearance of a gangly geth prime. She understands that the mission is the most important thing in the entire world. Once she has an order, she carries it out with full effort. Still, Shepard thinks as she looks up at the very unimpressive Prothean beacon, given enough time she's sure to do something that will piss Shepard off. Everyone does eventually.

"Joker, we've secured this Prothean piece of shit. Come get us at the rendezvous point," she radios.

Alenko is uploading some data he scanned from the dead geth to the  _Normandy's_  computers. He'd received a particularly nasty cut to his cheek from some wayward shrapnel during the fight. It's only because Shepard's looking at it that she notices the glowing green light coming from the beacon.

Shoving Alenko to the side, she runs forward and grabs Ashley around the waist as the beacon tries to suck her in. The pull is strong, but eventually Shepard manages to throw Ashley to the ground. Unfortunately, that puts her in the line of fire.

She's lifted off the ground, but she hardly notices. The pain is too immense, like a thousand varren claws tearing relentlessly at her brain. She hears someone call her name, but the voice is so far away it could be on the other side of the planet. Images flash across her vision: red, dark, violent, bloody. There's a high-pitched squealing. Blood rushes to her ears. Any minute now her head is going to explode, and then it'll all be over.

Everything goes dark. Shepard's body falls to the ground in a limp heap.

 


	3. Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
> **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."
> 
> **Trigger warning: depictions of graphic violence included in this chapter.**

_drink down the gin and kerosene_  
 _come spit off bridges with me_  
 _just to keep us warm_  
 _light a match to leave_  
 _me be_  
 _light a match to leave  
_ _me be_

_Fall Out Boy, "Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner"_

xx

It's hot out; a perfect day for playing and a terrible day for baking, as far as Abby's concerned. However, her mother is insisting on making strawberry shortcake for dinner, and Abby's been chosen to run out to the garden to pick the strawberries. The crop is good this year; all of the strawberries look plump and juicy. Abby's managed to eat almost as many as she's picked, which is why her basket is only halfway full by now.

By the time she goes back inside, her face is red and there's sweat beading on her forehead. She hands her mother the basket of strawberries just as her oldest sister is pulling the cakes out of the oven.

"Laura, hand me the sugar when you're done, would you honey?" their mom asks. Laura nods and tosses the container of sugar in Abby's direction. She catches it easily and hands it over.

Laura is nothing like Abby, as far as siblings go. She looks much more like their mother, with bright auburn hair and honey-colored eyes. She's tall, like their father, and slim as well. She looks almost like a supermodel. Abby can remember her going through boyfriend after boyfriend when she'd been in high school. She's nineteen now, working as a secretary for a local advocate in town. Eventually, she wants to do business on Illium with the asari.

Their father is sitting in the room, reading the daily news on his data pad. He's a simple man with simple pleasures. He works at the hardware store in town, selling small bits and pieces to help people repair anything that might need fixing around the house. He rarely says anything unless it's important, and Abby admires him for that. He's well respected both by his family and around town. As if he can feel her eyes on him, he glances up at Abby for a moment and winks at her, before turning back to his reading.

Abby smiles. She has a big family, bigger than most, and she loves every one of them. Her mother is the rock of the family, solving problems and keeping them all together. She's a comforting woman, and after six children, she's good at being a mother. Abby's the third oldest in the family, only after Laura and Brian (her older brother, and one of two boys in their settlement that all of the girls seem to fawn over).

After Abby comes Ashlee, a shy girl who reminds them all of their father more than anyone else. Ashlee tends to stay buried in books. It seems she's more comfortable in her fantasy worlds than in the real one.

Next is Billy, a wild boy of only thirteen. He's curious, an explorer of sorts. He loves to test the world around him to its limits, sometimes to disastrous effects. He'd accidentally blown up half of their storage shed at one point because he'd been fooling around with some spare parts their father had lying around in there. He was grounded for weeks after that, but it didn't stop him from breaking a limb the next time he was allowed out to play.

Last, but not least, is Grace, who at twelve years old is practically Abby's clone. They look almost the same except that Grace has bright red hair and she's already a bit taller than Abby. Their personalities are very similar. Grace loves talking to people, solving their problems and making them feel better if she can. She sees the best in everyone and is particularly accepting of aliens, something that's mostly unheard of in such a small community. She loves Mindoir, but she wants to travel and see the rest of the galaxy if she can, much like Abigaile herself. Grace is the baby, and everyone protects her with a special fierceness, even though she tends to take care of herself.

It's Grace who bursts through the front door at that moment and runs over to Abby, face bright red and hair flying wildly out of its ponytail. She stops short of her sister, panting heavily, but looking very excited.

"We're going to play a game of tackle ball! Come play with us, Abby," she insists.

Abby grins and looks over at their mother to make sure it's okay. Mary nods and Grace squeals with delight, grabbing Abby's hand and dragging her out the door. The boys have already set up the field in the middle of the road, using large rocks as goal posts. Several other kids from the neighborhood are out as well, including Jason, who is Laura's latest fling.

Tackle ball is kind of like a free-for-all consisting of multiple two-man teams. Players are able to kick, throw, or carry the ball into one of the goal areas, but if a member of another team tackles them to the ground, they have to give the ball up to that team. A goal can only be scored if both members of the same team touch the ball at least once in the same play. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins, and the team that completes the most tackles gets one free point at the beginning of the next game and is allowed to start with the ball as well. The game usually ends after a few rounds with someone getting injured from a tackle, or with the teams fighting over who tackled the most.

Abby teams up with Grace, knowing that the others won't go after her as hard because she's so young. Brian and Jason are a formidable match together, while Billy is teamed with one of the girls he goes to school with. One of the kids from down the road agrees to referee since there's an uneven number.

Jason and Brian win the first game pretty easily, as they're the biggest and strongest of the group. They also take away the most tackles. During the second game, however, Abby and Grace take the lead. Abby is just strong enough that she can hold the others off while Grace ducks and dodges with her speed. Brian's team has the most tackles once again.

They take a half-time break after the second game so they can catch their breath and get some water. The hot sun takes its toll on the group and Billy's teammate decides to call it quits. The other boy is eager to team up with him and get into the action.

Just when they're about to start the third game, Brian is distracted by a large cloud of dust in the distance. It looks like a hover cab of some sort, but it definitely isn't civilian. It's followed by several more of the same make.

"I wonder what's going on," he mutters, turning to see if there's anything happening around them that he hasn't noticed. All is normal.

The cabs stop a few miles away from them and their passengers get out. Even at this distance, Abby can see that they aren't human, and they're heavily armed.

"Shit. Abby, get Grace inside and tell Mom and the girls to stay in the house. Billy, go get Dad. Tell him to bring his guns. Go!"

Abby knows better than to argue. She runs faster than she ever has, holding tightly to Grace's hand. Billy's hot on her tail. The others are confused when she tells them what was going on, but at the look on her father's face when she says it, they know that it's serious. Their dad goes back to the shed and grabs his guns immediately. He orders them to stay in the house, giving Abby a pistol in case anything happens.

Her father has taught her how to shoot, but at the prospect of having to use a gun for actual defense, she feels sick to her stomach. There'd been a lot of aliens getting out of those cabs. If they're a threat, she won't be able to do anything against them. She's still just a kid. Grace is shaking at her side. Ashlee looks like she might faint.

There's silence for a long time. Abby's starting to think that maybe the aliens don't want to hurt them. Suddenly, there's a shot outside, followed by lots of yelling and then a stream of gunfire. Abby's stomach turns nastily when she hears her dad scream Brian's name. Their mom whimpers and runs for the door.

"No, Mama, don't!" Abby yells, lunging after her.

There's an explosion just as her mother opens the door. The whole house shakes violently as flaming debris shoot through the windows. Abby is thrown to the floor as her mother flies backwards into her. Her clothing is on fire, her face and skin melted beyond recognition. Someone screams; maybe it's Abby. She doesn't know at this point. She scrambles to her feet and yells at her siblings to run out back, towards the shed.

The air outside is smoky from the fire. There are several other explosions nearby and they have to fight to keep their balance. There are people running towards them. Not humans. Batarians. Without thinking, Abby fires her pistol at one of them, shooting it right between its four eyes. It drops, but is soon followed by others. They start firing.

Several bullets rip into Billy as he runs. He falls to the ground like a ragdoll and Ashlee trips over his body. She screams as one of the batarians swoops down and grabs her up. Abby makes an attempt at shooting it, but misses by a long shot. Her hands are shaking terribly. A stray bullet whizzes past her head and hits one of the buildings behind her.

Several of her neighbors are out now, putting up a fight. Most of them don't have guns, but when they see Abby and her sisters trying to get to safety, they run into open fire. Some of them barely make it two steps before they're gunned down.

Strong arms wrap around her from behind. She screams and slams her head back into the batarian's face. It stumbles backwards, enough for her to turn around and empty the last of her clip into its body. Her stomach lurches at the sight of the brown blood, but she doesn't have time to stop. One of the batarians has taken hold of Grace.

The little girl puts up a hell of a fight. She bites its ear half off and swings at its face. The batarian roars in pain before knocking the girl out with the butt of its rifle. Laura is fighting two other batarians that are trying to hold her down. After several moments of struggle, one of them decides that it's had enough. The close range shotgun blast tears her small frame in two. Abby finally lets go of the contents of her stomach as she watches the intestines spill out of her sister's upper half. The half-digested strawberries are the color of blood on the ground.

A moment later, she remembers the batarian still carrying an unconscious Grace away. She sprints after it as fast as her legs will carry her. She can hear the other batarians that killed Laura coming fast behind her. She's nearing her house again. The batarian carrying Grace is already in the street. She pushes harder after it, reaching the street in time to see it throw her limp body into a large hover cab, where several other people from her town are already laying, unconscious. The batarian hops into the cab and it flies away. Abby feels a scream rip through her esophagus as she watches it disappear into the thick smoke.

Ahead of her are the bodies of Brian and her father, charred from previous explosions. What appears to be Jason's head is several feet to her right. She's ready to give up. Everyone she knows, her entire family, is either dead or captured. She's going to be resigned to one of those two fates as well. She'll make sure the batarians have no choice but to kill her. She never wants the opportunity to remember what happened here again.

Behind her, a grenade goes off somewhere, blowing her house apart. The blast knocks her face first into the dirt as pieces of what used to be her home fall on top of her and cover her body. Her head is spinning, her vision going blurry. Somewhere, she thinks she smells strawberries. Then, there's nothing but blissful darkness.


	4. Camisado

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_you're a regular decorated emergency  
_ _the bruises and contusions will remind you  
_ _what you did when you wake  
_ _you've earned your place atop the ICU's  
_ _hall of fame  
_ _camera caught you causing a commotion  
_ _on the gurney again_

_can't take the kid from the fight  
_ _take the fight from the kid  
_ _sit back relax  
_ _sit back  
_ _relapse again_

_Panic At the Disco, "Camisado"_

xx

The ship is a nice one. Ashley's never been on one quite like it, which isn't very surprising considering the fact that she's almost always grounded. It's fast, quiet. Supposedly has some turian integrated design. Most of what she's seen of it consists of the med bay. Captain Anderson had debriefed her while the doctor was tending to her few minor wounds. Now, she sits on one of the spare beds, watching the waves on the brain monitor spike as Commander Shepard dreams about something that appears entirely unpleasant. She completely takes the blame for the commander's condition, and she'll sit there and look after her until she wakes up again. Despite Dr. Chakwas's assurances, Ashley wants to see for herself that Shepard's okay.

Ashley looks closely at Shepard's face, something she hadn't really been able to do while they were gunning down geth on Eden Prime. The commander is a surprisingly small woman for as much punch as she packs on the battlefield. She has a mouth on her that Ashley has only ever heard on fifty-year-old war veterans with missing limbs. There's a long scar running through her left eyebrow. Ashley wonders how painfully the person who gave it to her had died. She's actually pretty, Ashley notes with some surprise. It's hard to see when Shepard's awake. She's almost always frowning or scowling, and she has an entirely different look about her when she's cutting people down, either with her tongue or her gun.

There's no doubt about it that Commander Shepard is a formidable woman. Ashley remembers hearing about Torfan. A lot of destruction happened on both sides. Shepard had made sure that every last batarian was ferreted out of hiding and executed. It's somewhat understandable, considering the fact that the batarians were responsible for the decimation of Shepard's entire home colony. Still, the move had cost the lives of a lot of marines. Ashley's not really sure what she would do in a situation like that. She's kind of afraid to admit that she might do the exact same thing Shepard had done if someone had murdered her family right in front of her eyes. Shepard will do whatever it takes to make sure something gets done. Ashley isn't entirely sure how much she likes that idea.

xx

Dr. Chakwas looks up from her papers and over at Ashley. She hasn't said anything to the woman for a very long time. If Chief Williams wants to sit there and stare at Shepard while she sleeps, who is she to stop her? Now she can see that Ashley is hunched over uncomfortably, probably sleeping. It's been hours since they brought Shepard in and the commander shows absolutely no signs of waking so far. If Ashley's going to stay, she might as well get some decent rest.

Chakwas stands and stretches, her body protesting from the sudden movement. She walks over to Ashley quietly and touches her shoulder. The chief awakes with a start, looking first at Chakwas and then quickly to Shepard to make sure she's still sleeping.

"If you're going to insist on staying here, you might as well lie down and get some rest. I highly doubt that the commander is going to spring awake any time soon and grace us with her charm," Chakwas tells her wryly.

Ashley looks as though she might protest for a moment, but after being forced to stifle a yawn, she nods and stretches out on the cot. She's asleep almost instantly.

Chakwas decides to venture out into the mess and get a cup of coffee. It's mostly empty now, save the few soldiers who serve as night watch crew for the ship. They salute her as she walks past. She finds Pressly at the carafe and gives him a nod.

"Didn't go quite as planned today, did it?" he asks quietly.

"No, it certainly did not."

"How's the commander?"

Chakwas takes a careful sip of her coffee. Might as well be petrol oil for as good as it tastes. She misses her tea.

"She should be fine. There was no real physical damage other than a dislocated shoulder and a bruised rib. She's in a very deep sleep right now. I expect she'll stay that way for quite some time," she replies.

Pressly nods. "Shame about Jenkins. He was a good kid."

"Yes. He was." She doesn't want to think about it now. She had truly been fond of him. She hopes they'll hold a proper service for him once they get to the Citadel.

xx

Ashley doesn't know what time it is when she finally wakes up again. She glances over at Shepard to find the commander still sleeping soundly. Dr. Chakwas is already up and working, or maybe  _still_  up and working. She sits up on the cot and redoes her bun so that it's neat again.

"I suggest you go eat something before there's nothing left to eat," Chakwas remarks without even a glance in her direction.

Ashley nods and exits the med bay. There are a ton of soldiers in the mess, eating the usual eggs and toast. She goes over to the serving line where she meets Alenko. He nods to her as the chef plops food onto his plate.

"How do you feel, Chief?" he asks politely. Ashley receives her food and follows him to a table.

"No complaints," she replies. "It's been a while since I've been in a real firefight. I'm out of practice."

"You held your own." He shovels food into his mouth hungrily. "Sorry about your unit."

"Thanks," she says. She's not quite ready to think about that yet. Alenko is graciously silent after that.

After breakfast, it's back to the med bay. Shepard is still sleeping, but she's starting to stir. Probably dreaming again. Ashley wonders what she's seeing to make her look so pained. The waves on the monitor spike and Chakwas comes over to see if it's anything serious. In a few minutes it's over again and Shepard is still once more.

Ashley is back on her cot waiting for at least half an hour before Shepard stirs again. This time it's slow. Her limbs move with determination as though they're tired of lying there. She groans quietly and then her eyes begin to flutter. Ashley jumps up off the table.

"Doctor! Dr. Chakwas, I think she's waking up," she says excitedly.

"Why are we fucking yelling?" Shepard mumbles, already irritated. She sits up slowly, putting her hand to her eyes as the bright lights make her head pound.

"Ah, Commander," Chakwas says, coming around to her side. Shepard is sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the table. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got electrified by some shitty alien technology," Shepard replies. "How long was I out?"

"About fifteen hours. Chief Williams has been sitting dutifully by your side nearly the whole time," Chakwas tells her, checking her blood pressure and other vitals.

Shepard looks around. "Williams? How the hell did you get on my ship?"

"Captain Anderson asked me to join on, ma'am."

"Wonderful. It's like cowboys and Indians out here. You'll fucking love it," Shepard says sarcastically. Ashley grins. "Think I could get something for my head, Doc?"

Chakwas nods and applies the treatment. "Other than a few minor wounds, you should be fine. The only abnormalities I detected were increased brain activity and a lot of rapid eye movement. Were you dreaming, by chance?"

Shepard's face darkens considerably. Of course she'd been dreaming. There's rarely a night where she doesn't dream about Mindoir. It's been quite some time since she had one so… vivid, though. She remembers something else as well, blended in with the images of her home. Something just as gruesome.

"Yeah. I don't really know what, but… I didn't like it."

"I should put this in my records," Chakwas remarks. "It may be some side effect of your encounter with the beacon."

"Fucking beacon," Shepard growls. "Did we bring it back with us? I'd like to go have a few words with that piece of shit."

"No, ma'am," Ashley says sheepishly. "It's my fault. Something I did must have activated it. You pulled me out of the way, but then you got sucked in. The beacon exploded and threw you back. It's completely destroyed. My fault."

Shepard frowns. "Maybe. Still, if I never have to see that thing again, I'll be glad. And if losing it pisses the Council off, then that's cause for even more celebration. Well done, Williams."

Chakwas looks as though she's about to scold Shepard for her attitude, but the captain walks in before she can say anything.

"There's our XO!" he booms, as though Shepard has merely been on vacation the whole time. "How is she, Doctor?"

"Perfectly fine as far as I can see."

"Excellent! Now, if you two don't mind, I need to speak with the commander in private," he says.

Ashley salutes. "Aye, aye, sir. If you need me, I'll be in the mess. Glad to see you're okay, Commander."

Chakwas goes into her office without a word.

"What do you need, Captain?" Shepard asks finally.

Anderson sighs. "This mission went to hell in a hand basket, Shepard. It doesn't look very good for us. Nihlus is dead. The beacon's destroyed. We've got geth back in the systems. And then there's this problem of Saren."

"You know the guy?" Shepard asks.

"I know he's a Spectre, and a damn good one. If he's working with the geth now, it means he's gone rogue. Saren isn't an easy person to go up against. He hates humans," Anderson tells her. As he says it, there's a gleam of hatred in his eye that's much more than simple anger towards a racist turian. It's the look Shepard gets when she thinks about batarians.

"No offense, Captain, but the splitting in my head tells me that he didn't attack Eden Prime just because he hates humans."

"I know, Shepard," Anderson replies. "He must have been after the beacon. I don't know how or why he's doing this, but we need to mount a defense against him in case it happens again. That's why we need the Council on our side."

"Oh for  _fuck sake_ ," Shepard snaps. "Really, sir? You think the fucking Council of races that doesn't include humans but does include turians is going to listen to a bunch of soldiers telling them that one of their best people is an asshole? What makes you think we've got a chance in hell with them?"

"We've got an eyewitness, we've got the geth, and we've got you, Shepard," Anderson says calmly. "The Council can't explain away everything that happened at Eden Prime. Especially not what happened when you activated the beacon."

"So what are we going to tell them, that I had a dream? I'm sure they're going to love that. I'll be a Spectre by the end of the day at the rate this is going," Shepard says sarcastically. She jumps off the bed angrily. "Going to the Council is a waste of our time, Captain."

"Maybe so, Shepard. But it's the only thing we've got. I'm going to call Udina and tell him what we know. Why don't you go up and tell Joker to dock us at the Citadel."

Shepard salutes with a scowl on her face and turns to leave, grateful to be out of the med bay. After a thought, she turns back around.

"Sir, about Jenkins…"

"Jenkins wasn't your fault, Shepard. We're going to give him due respect as soon as this whole thing is over," Anderson says, turning to face her. Shepard nods and leaves.

Ashley and Alenko are at a table talking to each other quietly. Alenko stands and salutes her the moment he catches her eye.

"Glad to see you up, Commander. How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Well enough that I can't get out of dealing with Udina or the Council," she says grimly. Alenko smirks slightly. "Captain seems to think that this thing with Saren is going to get much more serious than it already has."

"You think there's something he's not telling you, Commander?" Alenko says curiously.

"Isn't there always?" Shepard replies with a scowl. "At any rate, we should be docking soon. You two might as well prepare yourselves however you need to. We're about to enter a political shit storm the likes of which you've never seen."

xx

Docking at the Citadel is uneventful as usual. Only Ashley, who has never been there before, is impressed by the sights. Joker is eager to talk to anyone who will listen about the ships they pass along the way. Shepard and Alenko talk quietly about their prospects when facing the Council. Neither of them foresees success.

They take a cab straight to the Presidium where Udina is waiting for them in his office. After a few choice words, during which Shepard feels mostly like a rabid varren on a leash, they follow him up to the top of the Citadel tower. Udina and Anderson go on ahead so they can discuss a few things before the hearing starts while Shepard, Ashley, and Alenko linger by the stairs.

"This is a waste of time," Shepard says, relinquishing her sidearm to the guard. "The Council is never going to convict one of their own."

"Looks like you're not the only one who thinks so," Alenko tells her, nodding toward two arguing turians nearby. One of them is in clear C-Sec uniform, while the other appears to be some type of ambassador.

"I'm telling you, I can get the evidence. I just need you to stall them," the C-Sec officer explains.

"Stall the Council? Are you crazy? You think I'm a magician? Your investigation is over, Garrus and that's all there is to it." The ambassador leaves, nodding at them as he walks by. The C-Sec officer notices them and walks over.

"Shepard, Garrus Vakarian." He holds out his hand to her and she shakes it warily.

"You were investigating Saren?" she asks.

Garrus nods. "Saren's past is checkered, at best. If you say he was on Eden Prime, I believe you. And if he really is working with the geth, then he needs to be stopped. I tried to run an investigation on him, but Spectres are well-protected. There was only so far I could go before I got shut down. I'm sorry, Shepard, but it looks like this one's up to you."

"Get up here, Shepard; the meeting's starting," Anderson calls from the platform. Shepard nods and turns back to Garrus.

"Good luck, Shepard," he says grimly.

"Thanks," she says uncertainly. A turian trying to help her convict another turian—it's puzzling, but she doesn't have time to think about it. The meeting has already started.


	5. London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_just for the record  
_ _the weather today  
_ _is slightly sarcastic  
_ _with a good chance of  
_ _a) indifference, or  
_ _b) disinterest  
_ _in what the critics say_

_Panic At the Disco, "London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines"_

xx

It's a disaster, as predicted. Saren is as slimy as he looks. He seems to know every argument they're going to make before they make it and has the perfect responses waiting to dismantle them. That only proves his guilt in Shepard's book, but the Council eats every word he feeds them. It's over in minutes. Shepard can't believe she's even thinking this, but she would take Nihlus over this bastard any day.

"It was a complete mistake bringing you into that trial today, Anderson," Udina explodes the minute they step off the platform. "The Council knows about your history with Saren. It made us look like a bunch of lunatics!"

"They would have thought that regardless of the captain's involvement. The Council doesn't want to listen to anything that anyone has to say unless they're turian, asari or salarian," Shepard counters. "If we want to prove that Saren is guilty, then we need real, hard evidence that they can't possibly refute without looking like a bunch of racist assholes."

"Shepard's right," Anderson agrees with a nod. "Shepard, the three of you should ask around.  _Discretely_. Someone on the Citadel must have some information on Saren that we can use."

"What do you want me to do, set up a lemonade stand by the docks and offer free drinks to anyone who has info?" Shepard asks incredulously. "I can't question every person on the Citadel. Saren will have conquered the entire galaxy by the time we find anything of use. We need some place to start."

"What about Garrus?" Alenko offers. "He seemed pretty determined to bring Saren down. He might have something by now, if we can find him."

"I have a contact in C-Sec who might know where to find him," Udina says thoughtfully.

"If you're talking about Harkin, it's useless. He's suspended for drinking on the job, and he's an ass. I wouldn't waste your time on him, Shepard," Anderson argues. "I'd suggest talking to Barla Von over in the financial district. He's an agent of the Shadow Broker. His Intel may be pricy, but it'll be more solid than anything Harkin's got. It's your choice, Shepard. Harkin's probably down at Chora's Den already if you want to talk to him."

"Which one do you want to go to, Commander?" Alenko asks when they've walked away.

"We're going to start with Harkin. If he doesn't know anything, we'll try Barla Von," she replies, striding toward the transport terminal.

"Harkin sounds like an idiot," Ashley says.

"I hope so. I'm in the mood for a good fight. Drunken losers, I can deal with. I'd rather avoid a power-hungry volus," Shepard says.

xx

Chora's Den is nothing more or less than a strip club disguised as a bar. There are private rooms in the back that anyone can rent with one of the "dancers" for the right price. Shepard had spent a few nights here when the  _Normandy_  was docked at the Citadel. The drinks are cheap and it's far more low-key than Flux, so she doesn't really mind that most of the clientele is trash.

Harkin is pretty easy to spot across the bar. He has the build of a typical C-Sec officer and a miserable look about him. There are already several empty bottles littering his table. On her way over, Shepard almost runs straight into a krogan that's blocking her path.

"Get out of here, Wrex, before we put you out," a human bodyguard threatens.

"I'd like to see you try," the krogan laughs. Shepard echoes that sentiment in her head. "Tell Fist that I'm coming for him."

He turns around and comes face to face with Shepard and her team.

"Out of my way, humans. I have no quarrel with you."

"Thankfully," Shepard says, stepping aside. When he's gone, they continue over to Harkin.

"Well hello there, honey. Why don't you leave your boyfriend here and you and me can go have some fun in one of the private rooms," Harkin greets her. Shepard smiles dangerously and saunters closer to him.

"Sure." He looks like he can't believe his luck. Alenko and Ashley share worried glances. Without warning, Shepard brings a knee to Harkin's groin hard enough to make him double over. Alenko winces. "And when we get there, I'll rip your balls off and sell them to that krogan that just walked by."

"What the hell, lady?" Harkin gasps.

Shepard grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him upright.

"We're looking for Garrus Vakarian. And while you're at it, tell me everything you know about a Spectre named Saren, or I'll put you in worse pain than that," she growls.

"Saren?" Harkin asks, looking as though he might throw up at the prospect of more pain. "Christ, you must be Anderson's bulldog. Shepard, right? Fuck, sit down. You're making me nervous. I'll tell you what I know."

Shepard gives Ashley and Alenko a look to tell them to stay alert. She sits down across from Harkin, hand on her pistol in case anything happens.

"Start talking."

"If you're looking for something to use against Saren, I don't have it." Shepard looks murderous. " _But_ ," Harkin amends, throwing his hands up in defense, "I do know that Garrus went over to the med clinic to talk to Dr. Michel. Apparently she has some evidence against Saren that Vakarian thinks is useful. So that's where I'd start looking."

Shepard rolls her eyes and stands up. "You're as worthless as they say you are."

"I could tell you stories about your captain that would put your panties in a twist, Shepard," Harkin calls as she walks away. Shepard flips him off.

xx

They aren't the only ones who know that Dr. Michel has some information. By the time they arrive, three of Saren's cronies are interrogating the good doctor with not-so-subtle threats. If Shepard had known this beforehand, she may have exercised a little more caution when entering the clinic. As it is, the thugs are immediately alerted to her presence when she walks in.

Shepard doesn't need much of an excuse to take out the first guy she sees with a bullet to the chest. Another dives behind cover, but she manages to throw the object out of the way so that Ashley can take him down. The last one is unfortunately smarter than his comrades. He grabs Dr. Michel as cover and puts his gun to her head.

"Any of you make another move and I'll blow her brains out," he threatens.

"Listen," Shepard starts, but she's interrupted as a shot rings out. For a moment she fears the worst, but the man's face goes strangely blank and he falls to the floor, dead. Garrus Vakarian stands from behind one of the tables, gun still smoking.

"Nice shot," Shepard commends flatly. "You almost killed the damn doctor, though."

"I had a clear shot, thanks to you," Garrus replies. "Are you okay, Doctor?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she says in a thick accent. "Thank you for saving me from them."

"Heard you might have gotten some info about Saren since the last time I saw you, Garrus," Shepard says.

"Not yet, but that's what I'm here for. You showed up just in time, Shepard. Dr. Michel was just about to tell me about the quarian she was treating," Garrus says.

"Quarians?" Ashley repeats incredulously.

"And so the plot thickens," Shepard mutters. "Let's hear it, Doc."

"A young quarian girl came in here to get a checkup. They are very susceptible to diseases, quarians. She seemed worried, so I asked her if there was anything wrong. She said she had some information about Saren, and she wanted to talk to Fist because she knew he worked for the Shadow Broker. She hoped that Fist would trade her the information for a safe spot to hide from Saren until it was all over. I tried to tell her that Fist was dangerous, but she wouldn't listen. I fear the worst for her."

"Looks like we're headed back to Chora's Den," Ashley says.

Shepard glares. "If I'd known the bastard had what I wanted all along, I would have stormed in there with that krogan and taken him out."

"You're talking about Wrex?" Garrus asks. "Last I heard, he's being held down at C-Sec for making threats to Fist."

"He could be useful, Commander. We have a common agenda," Alenko says quietly.

"We all do," Garrus says. "Let me come with you, Shepard. I want to bring Saren down as much as you do, and I can help you get around any troubles with C-Sec."

Shepard frowns. She's not accustomed to working with aliens, as her relationship with Nihlus proved. Garrus seems different, though. He's earnest and his personality is almost… human. Shepard doesn't necessarily trust him, but for the moment she can see that he could be a useful ally. As for the krogan, she might need him in order to get to Fist. The poor bastard must know by now that there's an angry, persistent krogan after his life. Shepard's sure he'll have a lot of bodyguards on payroll. The more people she has on her squad, the better.

"If you're coming, you better follow quick. We probably don't have much time before Fist sells the quarian out to Saren, and I want that krogan with us when we go after him," she says finally.

"I'm right behind you, Shepard."

xx

Wrex is at C-Sec, just like Garrus said he would be. He's waiting patiently, or as patiently as a krogan can wait, outside of one of the offices while two officers eye him warily. Every once in a while, he gives them a look that makes them think he's going to spring over and eat them whole at any moment. He'll cooperate with C-Sec for now, because it isn't necessary for him to resist. This is only a minor glitch in the plan. He'll kill Fist by the end of the day, and then he'll be off of this miserable station and on his way back to Tuchanka for a little while.

He notices three humans and a turian officer striding toward him with purpose. He recognizes the woman in front, the obvious leader of the pack. He'd seen her at Chora's Den only an hour ago. Now she's only a few feet in front of him again, looking up at him with bold green eyes. Wrex doesn't smell any of the usual fear that emits from humans when they're dealing with krogans. She looks like she would agree to a wrestling match against him without hesitation if he challenged her.

"You're Wrex," she says.

"Who's asking?" Wrex replies deeply.

"It wasn't a question, Hunch Back," Shepard snaps. "I heard you've got a hard on for Fist, and it just so happens that he managed to piss me off too. We're going after him right now, so if you want your chance to crush his skull after I get the information I want, then you'd better come with."

Wrex scrutinizes her carefully. If any other creature spoke to him like that, he would rip out their spine. But he likes this human. She's not afraid of him in the least and he respects that. Besides, if she's going after Fist with a C-Sec officer at her side, then this is probably his easiest ticket in. He would have done it on his own eventually, but this is less bothersome.

"The enemy of my enemies is a potential friend. I will come with you, human," Wrex agrees.

"I don't know about friends, but at least we can make each other's jobs easier," Shepard replies.

"What are you called, human?" Wrex asks gruffly.

"Shepard."

xx

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya is young as far as quarians go. Perhaps she's a little naïve as well. One thing she's definitely not is stupid. She'd been top in her class in all areas of technical expertise. There will be plenty of ships willing to take her after she returns from her Pilgrimage, even if she doesn't bring back some exotic gift. The fact that she's even in this situation proves her intelligence; few people would have been able to salvage something like this from a destroyed geth's memory core. So, when an hour goes by and Fist still hasn't shown up for their meeting, she knows something's wrong.

There's a shady looking turian watching her, along with two salarian guards in heavy armor. She'd been told it was just a precaution. The Shadow Broker doesn't meet with people unless it's on his terms. She doesn't like it, though. The turian is staring at her like she's a piece of meat. It gives her a nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"What's taking so long?" she asks finally. "Where's the Shadow Broker. Where's Fist?"

"Don't worry," the turian says silkily. "They'll be here. You have the evidence, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Tali snaps. The turian comes closer to her. He strokes the side of her enviro mask with one of his claws.

"Let's see it, then. I need to make sure you're not pulling something on the boss," the turian insists.

"No," Tali spits, backing away. "This isn't right. The deal's off."

The turian's confident face contorts with anger. He looks over to the guards and nods. They come towards her, guns drawn. She's outnumbered, but if she's quick she can make a break for it. She throws a small charge in the guards' direction and dives out of the way as it blows up. The turian shoots at her furiously with an automatic weapon.

There are several other shots, and suddenly the two salarians drop to the floor. The turian swivels around with alarm, but he's too late. A small squad of two humans, a turian, and a krogan, of all things, easily take him down. Tali crawls out of her cover cautiously.

"Thank you, I think," she says. One of the humans glares.

"You think? We just saved your ass from certain death and you  _think_  you're grateful?"

"Sorry, I just wasn't sure if I could trust you or not. Yes, I am grateful. Thank you. I can't believe Fist set me up like that," Tali amends.

"Well, he's not the most reliable guy in the world," the turian says.

"Doesn't matter. He's dead now," the krogan grunts.

"I'm sorry, but, who are you all?" Tali asks uncertainly. She's never seen such an odd bunch before.

"I'm Commander Shepard of the Alliance military. This is Lieutenant Alenko and Chief Williams," the woman who'd spoken first says gruffly. "The turian over there is Garrus Vakarian, and that overgrown lizard is called Wrex."

"Watch it Shepard," Wrex growls. "I've still got some rounds left in my shotgun."

"Me too," Shepard smirks. "Want to see who's the quicker draw?" Wrex laughs, but doesn't reply.

"What's your name?" Garrus asks.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," Tali replies.

"We need your help, Tali," Garrus continues. "We're trying to take out Saren before he causes any more trouble. We heard you have some evidence that might help. We'd like to present it to the Council, if you don't mind."

"I don't give a shit if you mind," Shepard corrects. "I'm just giving you the chance to be useful and hand it over willingly."

They can't see it behind the glass of her faceplate, but Tali glares at them. Who does this Shepard woman think she is, demanding evidence from her that she worked hard to retrieve? Still, their group could definitely take what they want from her without even batting an eye, so the fact that they're asking is a sign of faith.

"Fine," she says grudgingly. "But I'm coming with you."

Shepard rolls her eyes. "When did I become the conductor of the Alien fucking Express?"

"Come on, Commander, we really should hurry and tell the ambassador about this," Ashley says.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go."

xx

The evidence is solid. It's most certainly Saren's voice in the audio file. For a second, Shepard feels like a kid on Christmas morning again. She can almost kiss Tali for this. Almost. And it only lasts a second before the elation morphs into the heavy satisfaction that comes with getting revenge. Saren tried to slander her at the first hearing, make her look like some kind of lunatic. She has him now. He can't weasel his way out of this one.

Even the pompous Council members can't refute the evidence. The turian looks no less than disappointed at the fact that a bunch of humans proved him wrong. They pinpoint another criminal at the hearing, too. Some asari matriarch that's supposedly very powerful. Shepard doesn't care. She'll take every bastard down that aligns themselves with Saren. If he'd been looking for a war, he was going to get one.

Still, there's another matter of some concern. Matriarch Benezia mentioned something about the return of the Reapers. Shepard doesn't know what that means, or what exactly they're reaping. The Council is firmly convinced that it's impossible. If the Reapers haven't been seen in over 50,000 years, then that means they can't exist.

"Right, just like how the geth weren't a threat because they hadn't been seen outside the veil since you were born?" she spits at the asari councilor.

They won't hear it, though. They've already conceded that Saren's a traitor. Why should they admit any more than that?

Shepard actually gains a modicum of respect for Udina during the meeting. Even he gets so tired of the Council's political bullshit that he starts to rip them a new one about never giving humanity a chance. And then the asari says something unthinkable.

"There is another way, Ambassador."

Shepard doesn't know what she could possibly be talking about until the turian protests loudly. They aren't ready for this, he argues. And suddenly Shepard gets it. They want to make her a Spectre. She hadn't even wanted it. When Nihlus told her the first time around that he'd put her name forward, she'd been a little pissed off. Shepard's a soldier, not a space cowgirl. She works for the Alliance because they saved her back on Mindoir. Like a baby goose that imprints on the first thing it sees when it's born, she latched onto the Alliance like it was her new mother. In some ways, it was. She'd been reborn that day when she woke up on the patrol ship. Not Abby anymore. Shepard. She's a different person now.

Being a Spectre means concerning herself with the entire galaxy, not just humanity. It means having to work with aliens she's only ever seen through the scope of a gun. It means no rules, sure, but it also means no protection. No one to go to bat for her if she fucks up. Worst of all, it means answering to the Council, of all things. Shepard isn't sure if she can do that without going ballistic on someone.

But people are counting on her. Udina, Anderson, Ashley, Kaiden, Joker. All of humanity. All the people on Eden Prime who'd been killed or displaced by Saren and his geth. All the people who'd been hurt or killed during the Skyllian Blitz. All the people on Mindoir. Her friends. Her family. Laura, Brian, Ashlee, Billy, Grace. She wonders what they would think of her if they saw her now. Hardened. Heartless. Would they even recognize her?

She thinks of her mother. She can see her, in the kitchen making strawberry shortcake for desert. Hear her father reading off the news from his data pad that their daughter had been named the first human Spectre. Hear his deep, calm voice. See the tears of joy in her mother's eyes, the pride on her father's face. Hear Billy and Grace bragging to their friends at school that their big sister was a warrior of the galaxy.

Maybe she doesn't want it. But it's a necessary step if she's ever going to avenge all of the humans who'd ever lost their lives to aliens who thought they could take whatever they wanted. It won't bring her family back or reverse what happened on Mindoir, but in a way it's comforting to her, knowing that she can at least bring something honorable to the Shepard family name. In the end, she'll stop Saren and the Reapers and whoever else comes along and tries to threaten the peace of families like her own. Even if it means she has to work hand in hand with strange aliens, even if she has to deal with the Council every day for the rest of her life, it will be worth it. At least humans don't live that long in comparison to most of the other races in the galaxy.

Today, Commander Abigaile Shepard becomes a Spectre, and she's damn proud of it.


	6. The Poison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."
> 
>  **Extra disclaimer:** the line that Ashley recites on the lower deck is from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called "Bereavement".

_you are so young  
_ _and i guess i'm old  
_ _open your eyes  
_ _and i'll keep mine closed_

_i prefer standing  
_ _and you take your seat  
_ _i'll be wide awake  
_ _and you'll be asleep_

_and you'll fall down a hole  
_ _that's the one place  
_ _we both know  
_ _you'd take me with you  
_ _if you could  
_ _but i wouldn't go_

_i guess that sometimes  
_ _we both lose our minds  
_ _to find a better road_

_All American Rejects, "The Poison"_

xx

She wants to clean her guns. Not wants,  _needs_  to clean them. There's one small problem: aliens have overrun her lower deck. Every time she turns around down there, she's in danger of slamming into Wrex's heavily armored body or gauging an eye out with one of Garrus's mandibles. Then there's Tali, who she half expects to see falling out of a duct one of these days. The quarian has certainly made herself at home in the past few days, becoming fast friends with Engineer Adams and touring practically every inch of the ship to get an idea of how it all worked. Shepard doesn't really mind that part; what harm could one quarian do on her own? Still, she draws the line when she catches Tali trying to get a glimpse at Shepard's own quarters. No one goes in there unless they have some kind of death wish.

Shepard thinks she's solved the problem. There seems to be one time during the day when all of the people on the lower deck go to lunch together for at least half an hour. Shepard takes the slow-moving lift down the minute they come up. When the lift door finally opens, Shepard finds her one and only sanctuary completely occupied by Ashley Williams. It seems the chief has her own penchant for gun cleaning, and is apparently servicing every fucking gun on the ship. Shepard growls and angrily slams the lift gate shut. Apparently she'll have to wait until the midnight hours in order to get some peace and quiet on her own ship.

They left the Citadel almost immediately after the Council had named her Spectre. There was no celebration, as the cause of her promotion was no reason to celebrate. The act had been made by the Council out of laziness and desperation. They could kill two birds with one stone this way: get rid of the little faux pas that was Saren without starting any wars, and shut the humans up about taking their rightful place in the galaxy. Shepard's aware that it has little to do with her personal achievements. She just happens to be the most qualified and most vocal candidate at the moment. Not that she really minds. She'll take Spectre status any way it comes to her if it makes her job catching Saren that much easier.

They're currently on their way to Therum, some shithole volcano world that no one has bothered charting because they haven't found anything of enough value there to risk their lives for. Shepard can appreciate that. As it is, she decides that of the three leads they'd been given on Saren, this is the best place to start. They're after some asari scientist who's supposedly an expert on Protheans. That's useful because it might help Shepard make sense of the fuckery that the beacon shot into her head. On top of that, whatever Saren is doing with the Reapers must have some connection to the Protheans, since the Reapers were the ones that took them out. As an added bonus, this Liara T'Soni is conveniently the daughter of Saren's cohort, Matriarch Benezia. Shepard figures her smartest move is to gather as much information about her enemies as possible before she actually starts tracking down Saren. Who better to give her an insight than the matriarch's own daughter?

xx

Shepard does sneak down to the lower deck in the middle of the night. It's 02:00 when she slips on her shower sandals and takes the lift down. It's mercifully deserted, and her table is clear. With an air of childish excitement, Shepard grabs her guns out of her locker, along with the cleaning supplies, and sits down. She's halfway through cleaning her shotgun when she hears the lift gate slide open again. She whirls around to see who it is that dares disturb her peace and finds Ashley looking back at her in surprise.

"Commander, I didn't know you were down here," she says cautiously.

"Sorry Williams, I wasn't aware that I needed to update you on my whereabouts," Shepard replies dryly.

Ashley looks a mix of embarrassed and annoyed. "I'll leave you to your business then, Commander," she says with a salute.

Shepard rolls her eyes. "I'm sure you didn't come down here for nothing, Williams. Don't let my charming presence stop you from going about your own business."

Ashley hesitates for a moment as though she's considering if it might be in her best interest to just turn around and leave. Finally, she nods and walks over to the extranet terminal set up in the corner. She begins checking her mail, which Shepard can't read from her seat. It surprises her that she even cares to. She watches for a moment before turning back to her gun. Eventually, they reach a point where neither of them seems to mind the other's presence, though neither forgets that the other is near.

When Ashley's finished responding to her last email from Lynn, she turns and faces Shepard, leaning back against the shadow-darkened wall. This is the first time she's actually been alone with the commander. In all actuality, she's done her best to avoid the situation. While she respects Shepard for her efficiency on the battlefield and her effectiveness as a leader, she's very unsure as to how to handle her on a personal level. She can never tell if Shepard is pissed at her when she snaps her snarky responses, or if that's just how she always is. Alenko doesn't seem put off by her attitude, but then he's used to it. Sometimes Shepard is downright rude. Ashley isn't sure how to take it.

At the moment, Shepard looks rather harmless. She's so engrossed in what she's doing that she hardly looks like she's aware of her present surroundings. Her eyes are unfocused, staring off into some unknown situation. Her hands move deftly of their own accord as though they haven't needed eyes to guide them around a gun for many years. If she notices Ashley staring at her, she's either too at peace in her current state of mind to care, or waiting for the perfect moment to say something totally insulting.

"If you're going to stare at me all night, you may as well have a seat, Williams."

Not nearly as bad as she'd anticipated. She isn't sure if it's a direct order or a suggestion, but she follows anyway.

"Why are you up?" Shepard asks after several minutes of silence. Ashley's surprised by the attempt at actual conversation. Shepard's eyes are still strangely unfocused.

"I couldn't sleep, ma'am," Ashley replies.

"Clearly," Shepard says, though her level of annoyance seems to be drastically muted.

"I had an unpleasant dream," she adds finally, feeling stupid for having to say it.

Shepard blinks, and suddenly her green eyes are unsettlingly focused on Ashley. The last piece of her shotgun clicks into place and she sets it aside almost tenderly before reaching for the assault rifle.

"You experience that often?" she asks. Not concerned, necessarily, but at least… interested.

"No ma'am," Ashley says quickly, then hesitates. "More so now, since…"

"Since Eden Prime," Shepard fills in for her. Ashley nods. Shepard's hands stop working the gun suddenly and she looks thoughtful, though she's still staring blatantly at Ashley. "It's a coward who fears his own death, and a brave man who admits that he fears the death of others, Williams. The only soldiers that don't have nightmares are the ones who haven't lived to see their comrades die, and the ones who are already dead inside."

"'Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,'" Ashley murmurs. Shepard stares at her incredulously.

"Did you just quote poetry, Williams?"

"No ma'am," Ashley lies, blush creeping up the back of her neck.

Shepard looks disbelieving, but doesn't comment. "You'd better get some sleep, Chief. Dreams will only bother you once before moving on to someone else for the night. Besides, you never know what we'll find on Therum. I'm not taking exhaustion as an excuse for incompetence."

Ashley takes that as her cue to leave and stands. "Aye, aye, Commander." She salutes and leaves.

Shepard remains motionless for some time after she's gone, lost in her own thoughts. She finally returns to her cleaning after a while. She spends the rest of her night on the lower deck and doesn't go to sleep.

xx

Ashley finds Alenko the next morning at breakfast, sitting at a table next to Garrus and Tali. She's not fond of all these aliens on board, and she especially doesn't like the fact that they have free reign on an Alliance vessel. She knows better than to argue about it, however. If Shepard didn't want them, they wouldn't be there. If the commander thinks they're necessary to the mission, then Ashley has no place second guessing that, unless she seriously wants an ass chewing from Shepard.

"Good morning, Chief," Garrus greets her pleasantly. Ashley nods in reply and sits across from Alenko.

"What's up, Ash?" he says.

"What do you know about Shepard?" she asks quietly.

Alenko raises an eyebrow. "I know she doesn't like people talking about her when she's not around."

"I'm serious, L.T.," Ashley says with annoyance.

"What makes you think I know any more than you do?" Alenko asks. "The commander and I aren't exactly paling around over beers every night sharing our deepest, darkest secrets."

"Yeah, but you've served with her longer," Ashley argues.

"That doesn't mean anything," Alenko tells her. "You know how the commander is. All business, no personal stuff. I only know what everyone else knows. Why are you asking anyway?"

Ashley doesn't reply. She doesn't know why she's asking, really, only that her interest in the commander has skyrocketed after last night. She's starting to feel slightly foolish for letting anyone onto this, now.

"I may be of some assistance on the matter," Garrus offers. Ashley frowns. She doesn't really want his help, but her curiosity gets the better of her and she nods. "I read through Shepard's file pretty extensively while I was running the investigation on Saren. It's fascinating, really. She grew up on Mindoir, a fairly small human settlement in the Attican Traverse. It was mostly a farming colony, very few exports. When Shepard was sixteen, batarian slavers attacked the colony, as I'm sure you all know. None of them were expecting it of course. The batarians decimated the colony. They were ruthless. The Alliance patrol that came through later found Shepard half dead, buried under the remains of her own home. Later, she told them that she'd seen her mother killed by an explosion of some sort, her younger brother and older sister both gunned down by the batarians. They found the bodies of her older brother and father riddled with bullets and charred by explosions. Her two younger sisters were captured and presumably sold into slavery."

Ashley closes her eyes. She knows the story of Mindoir, remembers her father talking about it when it happened. She knows Shepard had been there, but to hear the actual details of it told so casually makes her sick. Garrus seems to notice her discomfort.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asks, concerned. Ashley shakes her head again and Garrus continues. "It didn't say much about what she did after her rescue. The file picks back up on Shepard's eighteenth birthday when she enlisted in the Alliance military. They realized she had biotic potential and fit her with an L3 implant. She passed her combat tests perfectly and was admitted to the N7 Special Forces training immediately afterward. After her graduation, she was sent to Torfan to lead the assault on the criminals there. Great work, if you ask me. Anyway, her reputation was pretty much made at Torfan. When it was all over, she was assigned as the executive officer of this ship. The rest, as you humans say, is history."

"There you go, Ash. Everything you could possibly want to know about the commander, though most of it you probably already knew. Satisfied?" Alenko asks.

Ashley doesn't reply. Alenko's right. It's all typical information, something that could be compiled through a simple search on the net. It doesn't tell her anything about who Shepard  _is_. Had she always been the way she is now or, as Ashley suspects is the case, did the events on Mindoir drastically changed her personality? Is there any hint of the "old" Shepard still left? Does Shepard ever think of her family, or does she block it completely from her mind? Does she wish she'd died with them that day, or is she grateful to the Alliance for saving her? These are the questions that have had Ashley's brain bursting at the seams since their encounter the night before, and they can only be answered by Shepard herself. Ashley wonders if she'll ever know the answers.

xx

By mid afternoon, they're suiting up for their drop onto Therum. Shepard is totally unsure of what they'll find there, but they have a lock on Liara's location, so that's a plus. She doesn't underestimate Saren. If he's smart (and he is), he'll know that they're going to try to get Liara on their side and he'll try to head them off. Shepard isn't taking any chances on the matter. She'll take a full team with her.

"Listen up, people," she yells as they all gather around the Mako. "This is supposed to be a simple retrieval mission, but we all know better than that. Joker's already picked up readings that indicate geth activity in the area, so expect heavy resistance in getting to the doctor. We're supposed to be heading into some kind of underground Prothean ruin, which could mean trouble. Wrex and Alenko, I want the two of you to hold a position outside of the ruins. Anything tries to go in or out that isn't us or the doctor, shoot it." Alenko nods and Wrex cracks his knuckles in anticipation. "Garrus, I assume you know your way around a sniper rifle." The turian nods. "Good. With any luck, we can take some geth out without much conflict. Williams, I want you by my side with a gun out at all times, no matter what."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

"As for you, Tali, I don't know what kind of security we might encounter, but if nothing else your tech skills will give us an advantage over the flashlight heads."

"You can count on me, Shepard," Tali affirms.

"Good. Now that everyone knows what they're doing, let's go rescue an asari. By the way, if any of you are stupid enough to die on me, I'm taking your bodies to Tuchanka and feeding them to the varren," Shepard warns. Wrex laughs, but the others don't find it as funny. "Let's move out, people."

Joker gets them as close to the site as he can without dropping them into a pool of lava. Alenko navigates the Mako around several large lakes of it with little issue at first.

"Trouble ahead, Shepard," Garrus announces from the lookout monitor. "Looks like a Colossus."

"Engage stealth systems, Tali. Williams, power up those rockets. Alenko, be ready to make some evasive maneuvers," Shepard orders calmly.

"It's a Mako, Commander. It doesn't really evade," Alenko tells her.

"I know what it does and doesn't do, Alenko," Shepard snaps. "Just try not to get us hit or I'll throw you out there to distract it."

"Rockets are ready, Commander," Ashley calls.

"What the hell are you waiting for, Williams? Fire on the bastard!"

Two rockets fly out toward the geth. By now it's alerted others to their presence and a small army of foot soldiers come flooding out around it. The rockets come into contact with the Colossus just as it unleashes a bright blue ball of energy in their direction. The Colossus blows apart at the force, taking out several of the geth surrounding it as well. Shepard lets loose a stream of gunfire at the other geth, but is soon interrupted as the Colossus attack hits the tail end of their vehicle. The Mako shakes violently, the systems flickering for a moment before they recover. The shields absorb most of the shock.

"Everything is fine, Shepard, though I wouldn't recommend taking too many more hits of that caliber," Tali says.

"Hear that, Alenko? Let's avoid the shiny blue energy that fries our systems."

"I'll work on that, Commander," Alenko replies wryly. Shepard rolls her eyes and focuses on taking out the rest of the geth that are shooting uselessly at the Mako. At one point they even bring out a rocket launcher, but the turret cuts down the geth holding it before it gets to use it.

The rest of their trip around the volcano goes very similarly. Alenko manages to keep them from getting hit by another Colossus, though their shields do take a few hits form the rocket launchers. By the time they get close to the ruin entrance, the geth have set up a barricade that they can't take the Mako through.

"Looks like we're footing it, Commander," Alenko says.

"Smart little computers your people created, Tali," Shepard mutters.

They fight their way through on foot. It seems like the geth never stop coming, and they aren't as easy to deal with outside of the Mako. They take cover behind the rocks, picking off the geth as they come. They have a sniper somewhere, which is causing the team some difficulties. Luckily, Garrus manages to find it in the scope of his own sniper and take it out. Finally, the waves of geth start thinning out enough that they can make a move forward. They can't get to the door of the ruin site before the shit hits the fan.

"They're a lot bigger in person than I thought," Garrus says as another Colossus opens up directly in front of them.

"Time to get to work, Tali," Shepard yells, crouching behind a very large rock. Tali already has her omni-tool out and Shepard puts a large barrier up around them. Between Tali, Alenko and Garrus, they're able to weaken the Colossus enough that Wrex and Ashley can finish it off with gunfire while Shepard holds the barrier. After that, they only have a few minor geth to deal with.

"Okay, you guys know the drill," Shepard says when they're getting ready to go underground. Wrex and Alenko have already taken up their posts outside. "If there were that many outside there's bound to be some inside. We don't know how far in the doctor is, so we need to keep an eye out, especially for snipers. Let's go."

They enter as quietly as possible, though the door is a loud indicator of their arrival. The long tunnel they're in also doesn't leave much opportunity for Garrus to scope ahead. Shepard goes ahead first, checking around the corner. There's a solitary geth on guard near the lift. It's apparently alerted to their presence, but hasn't spotted her yet. She uses her biotics to quickly lift it into the air—at which point it begins flailing like a surprised child—and slams it back down onto the catwalk. The light on its head flickers and dies.

Shepard motions for the others to follow her. The only way down is to use the lift, so they all pile on and take it down one level. They're met by several geth this time, all definitely aware that they're coming. Ashley opens fire on them while Garrus takes out the ones farther away with his sniper. Tali takes one out by overloading its systems, but not before it manages to get a shot off at her. It doesn't get through her shields, but it makes her stumble back against the railing and lose her balance. Just as she thinks she's going to fall over the edge, someone grabs her hand and pulls her back.

"That's what they invented elevators for," Shepard quips as Tali catches her breath. "So people don't have to fall to their deaths anymore."

"Thanks," Tali says breathlessly, but Shepard is hardly paying attention anymore. She's too busy blasting a drone that's flown up out of the depths of the cavern to pieces.

They have to take another elevator down to go any further. It goes a long way down this time before grinding to a halt on its own cable where it has apparently been damaged. There's a several foot drop down to the broken catwalk below, which Shepard takes with ease. She lands in front of some kind of blue barrier, not biotic, but totally impenetrable. Behind it is a young asari who's suspended awkwardly in mid air.

"Thank the goddess you found me!" she breathes, her voice muffled by the barrier. "I thought I was going to die in here."

"You're Dr. T'Soni?" Shepard asks in disbelief. "The Prothean expert? What are you, twelve?"

"Actually, I am one hundred and six," she replies, incensed.

"Damn," Ashley whispers, impressed.

"Yeah, that's like twelve in human years," Shepard insists.

"Did you come here to help me or insult me until the geth come?" Liara asks angrily. Shepard looks thoughtful.

"Depends on how much you annoy me. What the fuck is this blue shit?"

"It is a Prothean defense barrier. I activated it when the geth came because I knew it would protect me. I must have done something wrong because now I am stuck like this. You must find a way around it so that you can free me and… I am sorry, I do not even know your name."

Shepard rolls her eyes. "Priorities, Doctor."

"Of course." Liara shakes her head. "I do not know how you are going to get to me, but you must hurry. There is a krogan here. He said he is going to destroy this place if he must."

"Hear that, Wrex?" Shepard radios. "One of your brothers came to visit us."

"If he's working for Saren, he's no brother of mine," Wrex grunts.

"We'll be with you in a bit," Shepard says to Liara, turning around. Before she even takes a step, a bullet whizzes past her ear and disintegrates into Liara's barrier. "Christ, Garrus I thought you were on the lookout!"

Garrus's reply is a shot from his rifle, which apparently takes care of the problem. Shepard and the others storm forward and about ten geth come into view. Shepard's biotics flare up and she sends several of them flying. Ashley's spraying gunfire in just about every direction and watching the geth fall to it like dominoes. Tali stays mostly out of the way and helps disable the geth with her tech skills whenever she can.

Shepard doesn't notice one of the geth sneaking up on her until another bullet flies past her and shoots right into its head. She shoots Garrus a heated glare, which she knows he can see through his scope because he chuckles over the radio.

When all of the geth are incapacitated, the four of them venture down into the cavern. There appear to be no possible entrances to Liara's location. The cavern is solid on every wall. After about five minutes of searching, it's clear that they're going to have to find another solution.

"What is this thing?" Ashley asks, inspecting a large piece of equipment against the wall.

"Looks like a mining laser," Garrus says easily.

Shepard looks murderous. "Did you know that the whole time?"

Garrus blinks. "You're not seriously thinking about using it? The force of that laser could bring this whole place crumbling down on top of us."

"Well the krogan's apparently planning on doing that anyway. Tali, can you hack into that?"

"Of course, Shepard," she replies.

"Good. I would say to aim it at the doctor, but the way that barrier works, we'd probably end up frying ourselves. So let's aim it at the rock underneath her instead," Shepard directs.

Between the four of them, they manage to move it to where Shepard wants. Tali spends a few seconds tapping at her omni-tool before she warns them all to stand back. The laser powers to life and shoots a high-energy beam into the rock in front of them. The whole place shakes as the rock blasts apart; they have to duck to avoid getting pelted by large pieces of it. When the dust finally settles, they venture carefully into the tunnel they've created. It leads them to a platform, which appears to be a lift of sorts. After some playing around, Tali is able to make it move. They soon find themselves standing behind Liara.

"How did you get in here?" she asks in disbelief.

"We don't really have time for you to question how we just saved your life," Shepard barks.

"We used the mining laser," Garrus offers.

"That was you? I thought it was the krogan."

"No, but I'm sure he'll be pissed he didn't think of it first," Shepard says.

"Please, you must get me out of here," Liara pleads. "There is a control panel on that wall that should deactivate the barrier."

"How do we know we can trust her, Commander?" Ashley asks suddenly. "She may be working with her mother."

Liara is furious. Her face turns a shade of dark blue with her indignation. "I am nothing like my mother! I have not spoken to her in years."

Shepard deactivates the field holding her in place and watches her drop to the ground with a thump. "If you betray us, I'm going to take you to Omega and feed you to the starving vorcha. Alive."

"You do not have to worry," Liara assures her, brushing herself off.

Before Shepard can respond, there's a loud rumble and the cavern shakes again, releasing debris from the ceiling.

"These ruins are very unstable. That laser must have disturbed them. It is not safe here," Liara says worriedly.

"Joker, we're going to need an emergency pick up outside of the ruins. Wrex and Alenko, brace yourself for some minor earthquakes," Shepard radios.

"Already feeling it, Commander," Alenko replies.

They get back onto the lift and take it up to the surface level where they came in. There's another protective barrier blocking their way, but it collapses as the ruins begin to shake more violently. As if things can't get any worse, the krogan that Liara warned them about comes charging through with several geth in tow.

"Hand over the asari brat," he orders gruffly.

"Fuck, I don't have time for you," Shepard says impatiently. "Either start shooting or get the fuck out of my way."

"Ha! I like the way you think, human," he laughs, raising his gun.

Liara flares up, blanketing them in a biotic barrier. Shepard starts shooting, dispatching the geth easily. Ashley fires at the krogan with little effect.

"He's charging, Commander!" she yells.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Shepard replies sarcastically, launching a biotic force to try to slow him down. It barely makes a dent in his momentum. He comes at them alarmingly fast, but Shepard holds her ground. He's within arm's reach of her when she pulls the trigger of her shotgun right in his face. His body falls to the ground in front of her, virtually headless. She finally lets out the breath she's been holding.

There's another disturbance within the ruins, enough to almost knock them over. Large pieces of rock come crashing down and Shepard yells at them to make a break for it. They run at top speed, back up the catwalk, which is on the verge of collapsing. Liara slips on the way up and Shepard stops to put her back on her feet. She's at the back of the group now, and things are going to hell behind her. She finally makes it out of the hatch and into open air just as the ruins seem to collapse altogether. The force of it knocks her flat on her face. She feels large arms pick her up and carry her into the waiting  _Normandy_. Wrex sets her back down once they're safely inside.

As the  _Normandy_  flies away, Shepard watches lava from nearby volcanoes that have begun erupting engulf the place that she'd been only moments before.


	7. Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_watch your mouth  
_ _oh, oh, oh  
_ _because your speech  
_ _is slurred enough  
_ _that you just might  
_ _swallow your tongue_

_or was it god who chokes  
_ _in these situations,  
_ _running late,  
_ _oh no, he called in_

_Panic at the Disco, "Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks"_

xx

Liara does not like flying. Ships are all cold metal and bright lights and harsh thrusters. They're far too unpredictable, always jumping through mass relays all across the galaxy, never knowing if they're going to hit the right mark or not. She much prefers the dark warmth of the underground where there's little probability for an accident if one takes proper precautions, and almost zero chance of someone finding and interrupting her. She'd been perfectly happy digging around her ruin on Therum before the geth had come after her and Shepard had blown the place all to hell. Now here she is, on another unpredictable ship, and a military vessel at that.

Liara feels very out of place. Everywhere she turns, she's running into another soldier. Most of them are pleasant, like Lieutenant Alenko. He always offers a polite smile whenever he sees her and frequently checks to see that she's comfortable. Others, like Chief Williams, are very standoffish. Liara isn't sure why the chief seems to be so opposed to her presence on the ship when they already have a handful of aliens present. On second thought, maybe that  _is_  the problem.

Then there are people that she doesn't understand at all. Well, one person really. Joker is the strangest creature she's ever met. He's disturbingly attached to the ship and speaks to it as though it's cognizant. He makes off color jokes that Liara can rarely comprehend, though any other humans that are present at the time always berate him for them. Perhaps the strangest thing he does is speak to the commander as though she's just an ordinary person off the streets rather than a superior officer. He says things to her that Liara is sure would earn any other person an act of violence, but for some reason she lets him go with nothing more than a glare and idle threats. It makes no logical sense.

Finally, there's the commander herself. For all the trouble the woman went through to save Liara's life, she certainly couldn't take any  _less_  notice of the asari's existence on her ship. Liara hardly ever sees the commander except for when she's striding purposefully towards something with a look of horrifying irritation on her face. There are some times, late at night when Liara is so busy with her research on the Reapers that she has yet to go to bed, that she catches Shepard sneaking down to the lower deck for some unknown purpose. Some nights Ashley Williams will take the lift down a little later. She never sees either of them come back up before she goes to sleep.

Despite her dislike of ships, Liara's happy that the commander has agreed to let her stay. There's no telling what lengths Saren and her mother would go to in order to take her out of the picture, and right now Shepard and her crew are the closest thing to safety that Liara's going to get. She has plenty to do to keep her busy, what with researching the Reapers and their connection to all of this. She can't get the image out of her mind, the one that she gets from Shepard the very same night they rescue her from the ruins.

Shepard breezes into the med bay only an hour after they've taken off from Therum, a look of clear irritation on her face.

"Alright, Doc, if you're supposed to be the expert on Protheans, maybe you can tell me what the fuck their wizard's tower shot into my head."

"I am sorry, Commander, but I really do not know what you mean," Liara replies with fearful confusion. Shepard is far too unpredictable for her liking.

"Prothean beacon on Eden Prime injected my brain with nasty little pictures of meaningless blood and gore. Since I've already had enough of that to last twelve asari lifetimes, I need to make sense of it before I go ballistic," Shepard explains shortly. She's leaning against a stack of medical supply crates with her arms crossed tightly against her chest.

Liara's eyes widen so much that Shepard half expects them to fall out of her head, grow legs and scurry away. "You came into contact with a working Prothean beacon and used it?"

"Don't get your tentacles in a twist, Doc," Shepard snaps, rolling her eyes. "Just tell me what you know."

"Of course!" Liara stammers excitedly. "Although, I am afraid it is not much. Prothean technology was not made to interact with non-Prothean physiology. The fact that you can discern anything is quite remarkable. However, without actually seeing the images that you saw, there is not a lot that I can tell you."

"Well unless you have some kind of tool that can turn my brain into a projector, I don't see that happening," Shepard says.

"I do not know about that, but there is a way that I can meld my own consciousness with yours, if you would allow me," Liara offers.

Shepard scoffs. "Should have known there would be some asari mumbo jumbo that could do this. It's not some plot to kill me, is it?"

"Of course not!" Liara exclaims, outraged. "You saved my life. I would never…"

"Yeah, well people have betrayed me for bigger favors than that, so don't get all offended," Shepard cuts her off. "Do what you have to do."

So, she does. What she sees is enough to give her nightmares when she's  _awake_ , let alone when she's sleeping: people being slaughtered and massacred down to the very last child by some sort of mechanical monsters. And before she can stop herself, she sees other things as well: hoards of geth falling amongst bodies of previously dead humans; a fresh-faced soldier getting gunned down before her eyes; a smirking turian, now dead; a batarian on his knees, begging for life, shot point blank between the eyes; loud bursts of machine gun fire, indistinguishable shouts, human bodies falling on either side of her, and batarian ones falling by her hand; a friendly looking human with dark skin and kind eyes shaking her hand; burning buildings, gunfire, explosions, chaos; bloodied faces and charred bodies of friends and family, people that feel familiar but have no names to her; a large human boy tackling her to the ground with a grin; a girl with flaming red hair; a sprawling strawberry patch on a sweltering day.

When she finally rips her mind away from the images, she finds Shepard staring at her, green eyes wide and chest heaving with labored breath. Liara wills herself to push it all out of her mind, to focus on the task at hand, but the sad fact is that she's no more able to make sense of what the beacon contained than Shepard. Shepard nods and tells her to make herself useful by doing whatever research she can. She leaves without saying another word, and they never discuss the millions of other things that Liara has unintentionally seen.

xx

The Council is not pleased. Shepard makes the mistake of allowing Joker to patch them through after their trip to Therum and they proceed to bitch at her for the next five minutes about the loss of a valuable Prothean ruin before Shepard tells them to go fuck themselves and get their priorities straight, disconnecting the comm link in a rage. Everyone makes a point to avoid her after that. Everyone, of course, except Ashley, who chooses that moment to voice her concerns about the growing alien population on the ship.

"It's not like I don't appreciate the help, Commander, but don't you think we should restrict their access a little bit? What if one of them really is working against us?"

Ashley knows she's in deep shit by the look of absurd calm on Shepard's face.

"Do you think I'm incompetent, Williams?" she asks quietly.

Ashley swallows hard. "No, ma'am."

"Maybe you think I'm a traitor then, letting all of these supposedly dangerous aliens wander an Alliance ship so they can help me secretly further my own agenda of galactic domination while we pretend to chase after a rogue Spectre who plans to bring a mythical race back to life."

"No, ma'am."

"Or maybe you think that I spent all of this time in the Alliance, graduating from N7 training and leading a team that effectively stopped all batarian attempts to attack human colonies, convincing the Council that their best Spectre went rogue, becoming a Spectre myself, and captaining one of the greatest ships in the Alliance fleet in order to stop the destruction of the entire galaxy by not being able to tell the difference between enemies and allies!"

Ashley decides to keep her mouth shut this time because she suspects that Shepard wouldn't hesitate to shoot her at this point and order the mess sergeant to make soup out of her remains.

"We're running a wild goose chase across the galaxy trying to stop Saren from bringing back the one thing that destroyed the most advanced civilization to ever fly these skies, and here you are trying to tell me that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing when I let people on my ship! We do not have the luxury of being too proud to accept help when it's offered to us, Williams, and I don't know what universe you live in, but where I come from, people aren't very likely to help you if you put a leash on them and lock them in a cage like animals! You're on my ship now, and if I say we're working with aliens, we're working with them! If I tell you to give up your bunk for one of them, you do it! If I tell you to follow them into the bathroom and wipe their asses, I expect to see you walking around with a roll of toilet paper in your hand! And if I say they get free roam on this ship, then that's what they get! If anyone has a problem with the way I'm running this mission, then just raise your hand and I'll drop kick your ass out of the nearest air lock and watch you try to float your way to the nearest planet before you fucking suffocate! Is that understood?"

There's a chorus of "aye, aye" around the mess. Garrus and Tali are both sitting quietly in a corner, their food long since forgotten. Eventually, everyone goes back to their business. Ashley stands in front of Shepard, willing the lump in her throat to die. Shepard stares down at her with blazing eyes.

"Unless you have something useful to add, keep your asinine comments to yourself from now on, Williams. Now get out of my sight and don't let me see you again until I ask for you."

Ashley salutes and shoots down to the lower deck like a rocket. Shepard catches Garrus's eye and nods curtly before disappearing into her quarters for the rest of the night.

xx

Garrus finds Ashley on the lower deck long after everyone else has turned in for the night. She's typing away furiously at the extranet terminal. He'd been well aware of her dislike for aliens long before Shepard's explosion. She's always treated him with a coldness that could only just pass as polite. Still, he'd hoped that she would grow to accept their presence over the course of them working together. Hell, even Shepard is okay with them. He wants to get to the bottom of this if he can. Staying at a very respectable distance, he clears his throat to make his presence known.

"Good evening, Chief."

Ashley whips around, taking an immediately defensive stance. "Perfect. Just who I didn't want to see. Come to gloat about your victory, turian? Or maybe you think now that I've pissed Shepard off you can get rid of me and she won't care."

"Hardly," Garrus replies with a smirk. "I was actually hoping to talk to you about what happened this evening. I certainly didn't take any joy from watching Shepard humiliate you, and neither did any of the rest of us. Well, maybe Wrex, but that's beside the point."

"Whatever," Ashley scoffs. "Don't think you're going to come down here and try to be my best friend just because Shepard shot me down. It's not the first time a Williams has been treated like crap in the Alliance and it won't be the last."

Garrus frowns. "Yes, it must be difficult being related to the man who surrendered to the aliens. You seem to have done well for yourself despite the adversity."

"Yeah, well you've got to work twice as hard when you're a Williams," Ashley replies proudly.

"Well I certainly admire your dedication. Although I have to say, pissing off the most volatile commander in the Alliance is probably not the best way to get your reputation up. Possibly detrimental to your health as well."

Ashley scowls. "I think I can handle myself, Vakarian. You think Shepard gives a rat's ass about aliens just because she stuck up for you? Not a chance. She hates aliens more than I do. As far as she's concerned, you're just a necessary means to get the mission done. If it comes down to your life or another human, she'll throw you into the fire in a heartbeat."

"I'm quite certain that you're right, Chief, unless that human's skills were less valuable than my own," Garrus agrees. "I'm perfectly aware of my place in the commander's mind at this point. However, there is one thing you've gotten wrong." Ashley raises an eyebrow. "It's not the fact that I'm an alien that makes me expendable. Shepard does hold a grudge, understandably. Her first encounter with aliens was certainly the worst situation possible, and there are many out there who do nothing to help relations with you humans. But that's not what drives Shepard's thinking. The only thing that matters to her is the mission and she'll sacrifice anyone and anything she needs to in order to be successful. Yes, that most certainly means myself and any other non-humans on the ship, but it also means people like you, Chief. Lieutenant Alenko, Joker, Dr. Chakwas… even Shepard herself. She'll do whatever is necessary to stop Saren because she sees the bigger picture, whatever prejudices she may have. She knows how to set those things aside when necessary. And I don't know if you've noticed, but it's necessary. If Saren succeeds in bringing the Reapers back, we're all done for. Not just the turians or the asari or the humans, but every last living being in this galaxy. Shepard knows that. And she may be crazy, but you'd do well to take a page from her book, Chief. We all would."

Garrus realizes as he walks away that perhaps he hasn't done what he'd set out to do at all, but judging by the look on Ashley face, he's at least struck a chord somewhere.

xx

Shepard thinks about it for a long time. They have good Intel that Benezia is on Noveria doing God knows what for Saren. Taking care of her will severely weaken Saren's defenses. She is, at this point, his most powerful ally and she could be in the process of gathering more. Having Liara with them throws a wrench into that plan, however. No matter what Liara says, Benezia is her mother and there has to be some sort of allegiance there. Even if there isn't, the asari reminds her too much of a little sister for her to not feel bad about it, no matter how necessary it is. Liara hadn't even had very much time to process the fact that her mother's an enemy of the galaxy before they were flying off after her, most likely to kill her. Shepard notes grimly that if she doesn't go after Benezia now, they might not get another chance. Mother or not, this is part of her mission. She has to carry it out. Noveria it is, then.

For some reason she doesn't care to explain to herself, she feels the need to talk to Liara beforehand. Family was the one thing that had been most important in Shepard's life when she'd had it, and she isn't going to set off on destroying someone else's lightly. She finds Liara where she always is: in Chakwas's office in the med bay.

"Shepard," the asari greets her with pleasant surprise when she enters. "I was not expecting to see you so soon."

"We're going to Noveria," she says bluntly. She cringes inwardly because she used to be better at this type of thing, when she was sixteen and cared about people's feelings. Now her mouth just expels things uncensored and she probably couldn't stop it even if she tried.

"Oh," Liara replies, her face resembling that of an abused puppy. It's frustratingly sad.

"Benezia is working with Saren and she's too powerful an ally for me to ignore. I don't know what her plans are or why she's working with him, but I don't really have the luxury of caring. If I get the chance, I can try to convince her to leave him, but…"

"Yes, Shepard, I understand," Liara nods.

Shepard sighs. "She chose her side, Doc, and she chose the wrong one. If it comes down to us or her, there's not going to be a choice. It has to be us."

Liara smiles softly and touches her hand to Shepard's arm. Shepard blinks down at it in bewilderment.

"I do not begrudge you for the decisions that you have to make, Shepard. If Benezia has chosen her side, then so have I. I mourned the loss of my mother long ago. I am with you, Shepard."

Shepard smirks. "You're awfully wise for a kid."

"I am older than you, Shepard," Liara reminds her with a frown.

"Maybe technically," Shepard concedes, "but in human years you're barely a teenager."

Liara seems to catch onto the joke finally and smiles. "Perhaps you are right. But one day I will be older than the oldest human that ever lived."

Shepard grins and shakes her head. "Yeah, I hope so." She turns suddenly serious again. "I want you with me on Noveria. You know Benezia better than anyone. It'll take us a few days to get there, so you'll have some time to prepare, as much as you can anyway."

"Of course, Shepard," Liara says with a nod. "I will be ready."

Shepard nods and goes to leave, turning back at the last moment. "I'm sorry, by the way."

Liara remains motionless for a very long time after she leaves.

xx

It's late again. The mess hall is empty when Shepard emerges from her quarters for a late night snack. She'd been talking to Anderson, letting him know what her plans are. He agrees with her that going to Noveria is the best course of action now. He'd cautioned her against taking Liara with, however.

"Be careful, Shepard. She may be with you now, but things could be different once you're about to pull the trigger on her mother."

Shepard doesn't want to believe that, but she knows it's true. It doesn't matter how innocent and naïve Liara seems or what promises she makes. Shepard will have to watch her back on this mission, and the best way to do that is to keep Liara as close as possible. Her decision remains unchanged.

Once she has an apple out of the cooler, Shepard turns to make her way toward the cockpit. She wants to get a definite ETA from Joker before he goes to bed. She stops in her tracks, however, as green eyes meet brown across a row of tables. Ashley stands frozen, looking as though she's waiting for the hand of God to reach down and strike her for being in Shepard's presence. Shepard hasn't seen a single glimpse of her since the incident a few days ago. Now, Ashley salutes her, turning to leave before Shepard can have a chance to lash out at her.

"Hold it, Williams," Shepard calls before she can disappear.

Ashley closes her eyes and silently curses her luck. She turns around slowly to face the commander who looks, if anything, bemused. Ashley does not find the situation funny. Shepard motions for her to have a seat at one of the tables and she does so stiffly. For several minutes, the commander just looks at her until Ashley can't stand it anymore.

"Permission to speak, Commander," she grits. Shepard raises an eyebrow and nods. "I wanted to apologize for questioning you the other day, ma'am. It wasn't my place."

"Apology accepted, Chief. I won't apologize in return because I don't really think it's necessary. I will say that I was probably a bit… harsh, perhaps. According to Alenko, Garrus and Tali, anyway. I don't want you to think that you can't come to me with concerns, Williams. But there's a difference between concerns for the good of the mission and concerns for your own agenda. Those kinds of concerns have no place on my ship," Shepard replies.

"Understood, Commander," Ashley says. She has to admit that she's actually a bit surprised that Garrus and Tali had gone to Shepard in her defense. She wouldn't have if the roles were reversed. "I spoke with Garrus the other day. I'll try to be more accepting of the aliens."

"I'm not asking you to be their best friend, Williams, but as long as they're here, you treat them like one of your own," Shepard tells her. "You're one of my best damn soldiers. If you're too busy worrying about which one of them is going to shoot you in the back, someone from the other side is going to shoot you in the face. And then I'm going to be really, really pissed."

Ashley can't suppress her grin. "Aye, aye, Commander." Only Shepard can make people afraid of incurring her wrath  _after_  they're dead.

"Now, since you're here and I'm bored, I'm going to pretend that you're a person rather than a soldier and have a conversation with you," Shepard says, sitting across from her. "So Williams, entertain me with your life story or something."

So Ashley tells her about her life, growing up with a mostly absent father, being the oldest of four girls and having to help her mother raise her sisters. She tells her about her father's hard work in the military and its futility, his love of classic poetry and his death. She tells her everything, or close to it, and by the time they're done talking, the crew is flooding in for breakfast and Alenko sits next to them, followed by Garrus and Tali, then a grumpy Wrex, and finally Liara. Ashley feels like Shepard is a totally different person now, though she knows that isn't the case at all. But it's something, a start, and it leaves Ashley feeling hopeful that things are maybe going to turn out okay.


	8. Shooting The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_all of the astronauts  
_ _champagne and plastic cups  
_ _waiting for the big hero to show_

_outside the door he stands  
_ _his head in his hands  
_ _and his heart in his throat_

_what can he tell them now  
_ _sorry i let you down  
_ _sorry it wasn't quite true_

_but don't get hung up on it  
_ _just soldier on with it  
_ _and good luck with shooting the moon_

_OK Go, "Shooting the Moon"_

xx

They discuss the squad arrangements at breakfast. All of them sit at one long table in the mess, with Shepard at one end and Ashley and Garrus on either side of her. Tali sits next to Garrus, and Joker next to her. Beside Ashley is Alenko, followed by Liara. Wrex sits at the other end of the table so he has enough room.

Shepard is adamant about taking in as much firepower as possible. She especially wants Wrex to come with because she figures the combination of his strength and biotics will be able to handle anything Benezia throws at them. Garrus cautions strongly against that.

"Noveria is a business colony. They're used to diplomacy and order. You can't just barge your way through there and expect to accomplish anything. You have to play by their rules," he says.

"Well maybe it's time they played by someone else's rules," Shepard retorts. "And by someone else I mean me."

"I appreciate your strategy, Shepard, but until we know the situation with the Matriarch, we should act discretely," Garrus advises.

Shepard doesn't look pleased, but in the end she concedes that a small party consisting of Ashley, Liara and herself will sniff around first under the ruse that Liara wishes to speak with her mother. After they get more information, they'll call in the others for backup if necessary.

"I'll take us in to dock, Commander. I could use a break after all of this hard work," Joker says.

"Yeah, I'm sure you're exhausted from being such a pain in my ass," Shepard says, rolling her eyes.

Joker grins and tries to stand with great difficulty until Liara catches him under the arm and supports him. He looks momentarily surprised, then defensive. Liara merely smiles, completely oblivious to his stubborn offense.

"I will come with you. I would like to see the city from afar," she says, walking him out.

Shepard raises an eyebrow and glances at Alenko, who suppresses a grin. Ashley shakes her head slowly, then stops abruptly when she catches sight of Wrex, who is dismantling some sort of small animal voraciously with his claws and teeth and then slurping up large portions of the meat. She pushes her plate aside and stands.

"I think I'm going to go get ready," she says, a poorly disguised look of disgust on her face.

"Weak stomach, Ash?" Shepard asks with a smirk.

Both of them stop and blink stupidly as the realization of Shepard's casual use of Ashley's nickname sinks in. Shepard's face quickly morphs into a scowl.

"Well, what the hell are you waiting for, Williams? Go get suited up, unless you'd rather sit your ass on this ship all day," she barks.

Ashley snaps out of her surprise and salutes quickly before hurrying off to the lower deck. Alenko clears his throat and stands as well, sensing that the commander might easily become a ticking time bomb at any moment now. Within a few moments, the rest of the table has disappeared with various excuses, except for Wrex, who finally looks up from his empty plate.

"You know how to clear a room, Shepard," he grunts.

Shepard glowers. "No, that was your disgusting feeding frenzy, Crocodile Face," she snaps. "What the fuck did you do with the bones?"

Wrex produces a tiny, sharpened piece of bone from between his claws and uses it to pick between his teeth before popping it into his mouth entirely and crunching down on it. Shepard's mouth curls up unpleasantly and he gives her a stretched reptilian grin. She stands up and leaves him without a word.

xx

When Shepard arrives at the cockpit, it's to the sound of angry voices coming in over the comm. At first she thinks it's someone from the Citadel calling to bitch about something, but then she realizes that they're nearing the docks at Noveria. The control tower operator is extremely displeased by their approach.

"You weren't scheduled for arrival here, Normandy. Our defense systems are tracking your ship. We will fire if your identity can't be confirmed," the operator is saying in a tone that's severely grating on Joker's nerves.

"We have a Spectre on board, Control," he says through gritted teeth, fingers tapping on the dash with irritation. "We're here on Council business."

There's silence for a few seconds before the operator comes back on. "You can land, Normandy, but be advised that if your identity can't be confirmed, your party will be detained."

The connection drops and Joker sighs.

"You're going to have a blast here, Commander," he says sarcastically. "I may have to join you so I don't miss out on all the fun."

Shepard's lips form a tight, thin line. If everyone on this planet has the same attitude, Garrus's plan of using tact is going to go awry very quickly.

"Joker, call Garrus up here. And tell Williams to hurry her ass up," she orders.

Both of them are in front of her within the time it takes Joker to dock the ship. Ashley's a little apprehensive, fearing that Shepard will still be in a bad mood after her earlier slip up. She salutes stiffly, not even relaxing when Shepard puts her at ease.

"Change of plans," Shepard says. "Garrus, you're coming with me. I have a feeling I'm going to need your diplomacy here, otherwise tact will turn into a massacre." Garrus nods his understanding. "Williams, I want you to stay here and make sure that you and every other squad member on this ship is ready and waiting to storm this place at my command."

Ashley tries to school her features as she replies, but it's hard not to be disappointed. Logically, she understands Shepard's reason for taking Garrus instead of her, but she can't help feeling like Shepard is punishing her for something or playing favorites with Garrus, who she seems to like quite a lot considering her supposed hatred of aliens. She shakes her head as she heads back down to the lower deck. She's being ridiculous, and jealousy doesn't suit her.

Meanwhile, Shepard checks all of her equipment over one last time. She glances over at Liara, who's sitting next to Joker in the copilot's seat. Her giant blue eyes are staring off into nothingness, as though she's contemplating the universe's greatest mysteries. Shepard knows the look well; Ashlee used to get it all the time. She pushes the memories as far from her brain as possible. All the innocence could just as easily be an act. She'll have to be careful around Liara during this mission, and thoughts like that will only get her killed if the worst comes true.

"Are you with me, Doc?" she says loudly, breaking both Liara's and her own reverie. The asari starts.

"What?" she asks, looking at Shepard with confusion. The commander raises an eyebrow.

"Are you ready?" she repeats, looking at Liara pointedly. Liara seems to understand what Shepard can't ask aloud, because she nods very slowly after a few seconds of consideration. "Good. Let's go."

xx

They make it barely ten steps before there's conflict. Captain Matsuo and her bitch of a sergeant actually have the balls to try to confiscate their weapons. Shepard is seconds away from opening up a shit storm of gunfire on them and blasting her way through the entirety of Port Hanshan, but luckily her foresight pays off and Garrus keeps her at bay just long enough for Gianna Parasini to call off the dogs. Shepard almost resents her decision to bring Garrus along; Ashley would have fired on them the moment Shepard gave the slightest indication. However, they would have had a considerably harder time getting to their destination, and the chances of finding Benezia would have been reduced immediately.

Parasini herself isn't much help. She's nothing more than a lackey for the cheese head that runs the port, and apparently only he can give them permission to leave the godforsaken place. Although it takes a great deal of effort, Shepard manages to let Garrus do most of the talking and refrains from making a bunch of threats that will likely get her nowhere.

"Now that you mention it," Parasini says thoughtfully after Garrus asks her if anyone interesting has shown up recently, "the Matriarch Benezia did arrive only a few days ago."

"Is she still here?" Liara asks anxiously.

Parasini nods. "Yes, as far as I know. She went over to Peak 15 maybe two days ago. She hasn't returned, so I assume she's still there."

"We need to get there," Shepard says.

"You'll need to set up a meeting with Mr. Anoleis, and unfortunately he's booked for the rest of the day," Parasini replies apologetically.

Shepard leans across the counter, eyes glinting dangerously. "I'm sure he can make time in his busy day to help out a Spectre, can't he?" she asks, her voice low and threatening. Garrus sighs tiredly.

"Well… I can take another look at his schedule," Parasini concedes, taking a step backwards.

"Wonderful," Shepard says with an unpleasant smile. "We'll be here when he's ready for us."

Garrus rolls his eyes at her when they enter the elevator. "Very tactful, Commander," he says dryly.

"We got what we needed, didn't we? At least I didn't pull out my weapon," Shepard replies.

The lower level of the port is nothing but a bunch of offices, which Shepard has absolutely zero interest in. There's a bar in the hotel lounge, so they wait there for Parasini to contact them. Garrus tells stories of his days as a C-Sec officer to pass the time. It seems to calm Liara a bit, so Shepard doesn't try to stop him. Besides that, Garrus tells a pretty good story. It's taking the edge off of the annoyance that Shepard feels about the amount of time they're currently wasting.

Sometime later, Gianna Parasini contacts them to let them know that they have a meeting with Anoleis immediately. They go down to his office, where they're met by Parasini. She shows them into a room with an uppity looking salarian who has a desk more cluttered than the ruins of Tuchanka.

"Well, come on. Out with it. I haven't got all day," he snaps after a few seconds without looking up at them.

Shepard growls. "Watch who you're talking to, little snail."

"Do you think you deserve any more respect than anyone else, Spectre? You waste my time just the same," Anoleis replies nonchalantly. Shepard grips the butt of her gun, but Garrus shoots her a warning look.

"Mr. Anoleis, we appreciate you seeing us. We're here to request a pass up to the garage so that we can get to Peak 15," he says calmly.

"Not possible," Anoleis shakes his head.

"Please, sir, I must speak with my mother," Liara pleads. "It is very important that I see her as soon as possible."

"In case you people haven't noticed, that blizzard isn't letting anyone out of this port," the salarian barks.

"Hey!" Shepard yells, slamming her hands down on his desk. He looks up for the first time since they entered. "Now, you heard the doctor. She has crucial information for her mother, and I'm sure you don't want to piss off the Matriarch by keeping us from her."

"It's either that or be the reason her daughter dies in a snow storm," Anoleis says simply. "I'll take my chances with the Matriarch, not the weather. Now, I've already missed twenty important phone calls since you've interrupted. Security will show you out."

Two burly men in blue uniforms step into the room.

"Don't you fucking touch me," Shepard snarls at one, hand still on her gun. The guard steps back and lets her through the door, which she rips open forcefully. "Who the fuck does he think he is?" she rages once they're in the outer office. "I'd like to rip the goddamn antennae right off of his slimy head."

"I'm sure that'll be helpful," Garrus quips.

"Shut the hell up, Vakarian, before I use your mandibles to do it," Shepard snaps. "What the fuck are you smirking at?"

"I tried to warn you, Commander," Parasini says smugly. She looks around suspiciously before leaning forward and dropping her voice. "Anoleis isn't the only one with a garage pass, you know. Go see Lorik Qui'in in the lounge."

"And you couldn't have told us that before? Or did you want me to bloody that pretty face of yours?" Shepard asks viciously.

Liara grips Shepard's arm and pulls her towards the door. "Come, Shepard; we must hurry."

xx

Qui'in turns out to be more useful than expected. Not only does he offer them a garage pass, but he also gives Shepard the opportunity to rain the hell down on this political shithole that she's been waiting for. They blast their way up to the turian's office through several of Anoleis's hounds, which is satisfying for several reasons. Garrus sniffs out the evidence easily, and they're just about on their way out when they're confronted by someone that Shepard has wanted to take down since they first arrived.

"I was hoping I'd get the chance to kill you, Shepard," Kaira Stirling grins, at least five more guards at her side.

"Likewise," Shepard replies, feeling the biotic energy build up like a geyser inside of her. She can see the same blue glow surrounding the sergeant and smirks at the challenge.

Stirling throws up a barrier at the same time that Shepard blasts a biotic force in her direction. The barrier absorbs most of the shock, pushing some of it back towards Shepard. She's thrown off balance for a moment, but Liara covers her with a barrier of her own long enough for Shepard to recover and start blasting people away with her shotgun.

They take cover behind a couple of crates as more people storm up the steps. Garrus picks them off one by one from behind his cover until only Stirling is left. Shepard steps out into the open, her body swarming with blue energy. Stirling takes a shot, hitting Shepard in the right shoulder, but Shepard barely feels it. She uses her biotics to lift Stirling as high as the ceiling will allow, slamming her into the nearest wall with the force of ten high-speed trains. Stirling falls to the ground in a gasping, bloody heap.

"Parasini-san won't be happy when she finds out how much of a cunt you've been behind her back," Shepard sneers, standing close to her.

"I'll see you in hell, Shepard," Stirling coughs, her teeth stained bloody red.

"You'd better fucking hope not," Shepard replies, kicking a biotic force into Stirling's head that crushes her skull to pieces. She steps over the body and leads them back towards the lounge, slumping against the wall of the elevator as the pain from the gunshot wound begins to register.

"You're hurt, Shepard. We should get you back to the ship," Liara says worriedly.

"I'm fine," Shepard says, brushing her off. "Let's just get this damn garage pass."

xx

It's easier said than done. They're ambushed just outside the hotel lounge by Parasini, who explains that she's actually an Internal Affairs agent trying to take Anoleis down. She offers them a garage pass of her own if they use the evidence to convince Lorik Qui'in to testify against Anoleis. It's only the prospect of seeing the slimy little salarian go down in his own system that keeps Shepard from killing the bitch for her deception. She agrees to talk to Qui'in.

The turian isn't pleased, but Shepard eventually convinces him to grow some balls and help take the bastard down. Watching Parasini drag Anoleis out while he screams and pleads at Shepard to help him out is the most satisfying part of her day, even more so than putting that Stirling bitch down.

"I owe you a beer, Shepard," Parasini winks as she drags the salarian out. Shepard smirks and takes the garage pass off of her desk.

"Joker, have Williams and the rest meet us at the garage, stat," she radios as they leave the office.

Once they're in the garage, things get worse. Shepard isn't able to do as much damage to the geth that ambush them with her injured arm. Liara rips several of them apart with a singularity, but Garrus is having a harder time with the stalkers. Shepard manages to get one with her shotgun just as it's about to jump her. It lands, heavy and smoking, on top of her, only worsening the pain in her shoulder that's been exacerbated by the shotgun blast.

Captain Matsuo bursts into the garage just as the last geth falls, followed quickly by Ashley, Wrex, Alenko, and Tali. Ashley knocks past the captain as she jogs toward Shepard with a medi-gel kit.

"Commander, this looks bad," she says, brow furrowed with worry. "I think we should take you back to Dr. Chakwas before we move on."

"We don't have time for that Williams," Shepard grunts, gritting her teeth hard as Ashley gingerly applies the medi-gel.

"You should have brought me with you," Ashley says quietly, brown eyes looking directly into Shepard's. For a moment, Shepard is caught in them; in the strange mix of concern and determination and other emotions that Shepard is too afraid to discern. She places her hand over Ashley's, holding the medi-gel on her wound, and squeezes hard, wincing at the pain.

"Well, Williams, you're here now. Make sure you're useful," Shepard replies in a tone that says she agrees. Ashley nods and finishes treating the wound.

While Ashley deals with Shepard, Garrus is forced to try to pacify Matsuo.

"What the hell did you people do in here?" she demands. "And what are those… things?"

"Geth," Garrus says, pointing towards a stack of crates against the wall. "They came out of those."

"Matriarch Benezia left those here," Matsuo says with astonishment.

Garrus glances at Tali knowingly. "How many more of those did she have with her?" he asks.

Matsuo shakes her head, looking wide-eyed at Garrus and Tali. "A lot."

"Well then," Shepard says loudly, walking over to them with Ashley at her side, "looks like we'd better get moving."


	9. Goodnight, Goodnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_I'm sorry,  
_ _I did not mean  
_ _to hurt my little girl_

_it's beyond me  
_ _I cannot carry  
_ _the weight of a heavy world_

_so goodnight,  
_ _goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,  
_ _goodnight, goodnight, goodnight,  
_ _goodnight, goodnight_

_hope that things work out alright_

_Maroon 5, "Goodnight, Goodnight"_

xx

"Jesus Christ! Williams, get those rockets going  _now_! Alenko, I want you to keep this piece of shit moving. Do not stop for anything. I don't care if there's a jungle of thresher maw in your way. Get us through this shit. Garrus, there better be machine gun fire and rockets coming from your Mako in the next five seconds!"

"Copy that, Shepard. We're working on it."

The Mako shakes violently as a rocket explodes nearby. Shepard swears loudly as the shield monitor in the Mako registers a loss of power. She releases a storm of gunfire on the geth troopers in front of her while Ashley launches a set of rockets at the turrets on the mountainside ahead of them.

Since they departed from the Hanshan garage, they've encountered nothing but shit. Every corner they turn is littered with geth and rocket turrets. Apparently Saren has armed Benezia well. The attacks are starting to take their toll on the two Makos that they've taken out. If they don't get to Peak 15 soon, there'll be trouble.

"Shields are almost down, Commander," Alenko announces.

"Shut up, Alenko. Get us through," Shepard orders. "Williams, take that fucking turret down."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

"We've got problems, Shepard," Tali radios from the other Mako.

"Can you hold up for a few minutes?" Shepard asks.

"Not very long in this weather," Tali replies.

The rocket turret finally explodes ahead of them and Alenko pushes forward, barely avoiding the debris that crash down around them. They finally round the last corner and come to a stop in front of another garage. The large door is blocked, but there's a smaller one that appears accessible. Shepard hops out of the Mako, followed by Alenko, Ashley, and Liara.

Shepard can feel the intense cold start to impair the movement of her armor almost immediately. She can only just make out Garrus, Wrex, and Tali falling out of the smoking Mako behind them. Part of the Mako's armor has been ripped off, exposing some of the electrical system. Liara leads them through the pedestrian door of the garage.

"Wait," Ashley warns, placing a firm hand on Liara's shoulder as the asari tries to move forward.

Her hand hovers over the button to open the garage door as she looks for Shepard to give her the okay. Shepard unhooks a grenade from her belt and sets the timer just as Ashley slams her hand down on the garage door release. When there's at least an inch of space between the opening door and the floor, Shepard tosses the grenade through. They can already hear gunfire in reaction to the opened door.

Ten seconds later, there's a deafening boom as the grenade explodes and debris flies towards them. Shepard motions them forward and they use the smoke and confusion to their advantage as they take cover behind anything that wasn't blown up by Shepard's grenade.

A door opens somewhere and three krogan storm in, guns blazing. Wrex roars at them, pitting his biotics against theirs. Shepard and Liara throw up barriers to slow the advance of their charge, but Shepard's breaks down a few moments later and she switches to her shotgun instead. Ashley and Alenko are unleashing a wave of machine gun fire on them, but it's having little effect on their hardened armor.

"Their shields are down!" Tali yells from somewhere, and Wrex takes that as his cue to storm forward and meet one of them head on.

Shepard has to quickly divert her aim to keep from hitting him. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that Garrus has taken cover in a far corner of the room is taking aim with his sniper rifle. He takes his shot at one of the krogan who's staying away from the fray, elevated on a catwalk. The bullet blows through the glass on the krogan's helmet and his eye, embedding itself in his brain. The krogan sways unsteadily for a few seconds before dropping heavily onto the catwalk.

Shepard now occupies herself with the other krogan that Wrex isn't battling head to head with. Liara's working heavy biotics on him while the others assail him with gunfire. Despite the fact that his shields are down, his battle rage keeps him on his feet, and he shoots a huge blast of energy at Ashley and Alenko, throwing them back towards the garage door. The energy expenditure weakens him enough that a shotgun blast to his chest finally takes him down. Shepard peers around her cover to see if there are any more assailants, but it appears that Wrex has the last one.

The two throw punches at each other with the force of a wrecking ball. Wrex has deep claw marks down his face from a well-placed swipe of his opponent's hand. No one has interfered yet for fear of harming Wrex in the process, and the knowledge that krogan don't appreciate anyone assisting their kills. Garrus has been following the battle through the scope of his sniper since his last opponent fell. He keeps his crosshairs trained on the enemy krogan's head with steady aim in case it looks like Wrex is about to fall. There's no need, however. After a heavy blow to the chest causes the other krogan to stagger back, Wrex surges forward and grabs the back of his head with terrifying strength. He launches his right fist into the center of the krogan's face. There's a series of loud cracks that would have almost anyone retching at the noise, and the krogan finally falls over, his bloody pulp of a face no longer recognizable.

Echoing silence follows as Wrex towers over his victory, panting with heavy, growling breaths. Thick orange blood oozes from the scratches on his face. Shepard finally stands from her cover, helping a weakened Liara up from the ground. Garrus trots over and stands next to Tali to see if she's okay, though she's pretty much unscathed. Ashley and Alenko are supporting each other as they walk over from where the krogan had thrown them. Shepard raises an eyebrow at them, still supporting Liara with an arm around her waist.

"You guys alright?" she asks, glancing them over for any noticeable injuries.

"Fine, Commander," Alenko replies. "The medi-gel's already kicking in."

Shepard turns her gaze to Ashley. "Williams?"

"No problem, Commander. How about the Blue Avenger?"

"I am fine, Chief," Liara replies, shifting to bear more of her own weight. "Thank you for asking."

Shepard smirks and allows Liara to support herself on a nearby crate before looking to Wrex. She motions for Alenko to follow her as she strides towards him.

"Nice fight, Wrex," she says. "I didn't know you had it in you." She looks down at the pool of orange fluid growing out of the dead krogan's head.

"Plenty more where that came from, Shepard," Wrex grunts. "Now let's go before we waste anymore time."

"Hold it, lizard face," Shepard orders. "Let Alenko patch you up first. I don't need you fainting on me halfway through the mission." Wrex snarls, but allows a hesitant Alenko to apply a heavy dose of medi-gel to his face.

"User alert!"

Shepard whirls around at the sound of a VI voice coming in over the loud speakers.

"All Peak 15 facilities have suffered a great deal of damage," the voice continues. "Biohazard materials present throughout the facility. Virtual Intelligence user interface offline."

Shepard huffs at the news. "Of course," she mutters.

"It sounds like we'll need to get the reactors back up before we can get out of here," Tali offers, tapping into the facility's systems with her omni-tool.

"Wrex, are you ready to move?" Shepard calls. The krogan grunts in reply. "Liara?"

"I am ready, Shepard," she says. Shepard nods and begins moving forward.

They find a few crates of equipment upgrades and ammo and take whatever looks useful. Shepard leads the way through a narrow corridor with a turret on either side. The turrets face away from them, toward the interior of the facility.

"Do you think they know their guns are facing the wrong direction?" Ashley asks as they pass through.

"They're not," Garrus replies grimly. "Those are for people who are trying to get  _out_."

Ashley frowns. "That's comforting…"

There's an elevator that takes them up several levels. The floor is iced over; the environmental controls are obviously destroyed. Tali warns them of a geth presence up ahead. Their position doesn't allow for tactics.

"Can you three disable them from in here?" Shepard asks, addressing Tali, Garrus, and Alenko.

"We can do the ones closest to our position, but any of them that are too far away will be out of range," Tali explains.

Shepard nods. "Do what you can. If we can get some room, we can take out the rest with firepower."

They go to work, and several minutes later Tali gives Shepard the okay to move forward. The door slides open at her approach and she's met by the sight of three deactivated geth scattered across the floor in front of her. She quickly moves forward and takes cover, motioning for the others to stay behind until she assesses the situation. After a few seconds of silence, she carefully pokes her head out from around the wall she's standing by. She's immediately greeted by three bullets whizzing just past her head and disintegrating into her shields. She ducks behind cover again and readies her assault rifle while throwing up a barrier to give herself extra protection. Finally prepared, Shepard runs from cover, unleashing a stream of bullets on the geth standing at the top of the steps. It quickly falls under her assault and she searches for any remaining geth before motioning the others forward.

"I didn't come to watch you play one-human-army, Shepard," Wrex grouses as they move towards the stairs.

"Good, then next time I'll use your hardened lizard hide as a shield," Shepard retorts. Wrex's reply is cut off by the harsh sound of rending metal, followed by a loud crash.

"What the hell," Ashley mutters, looking around with her rifle at the ready. For a few moments there's nothing, and then—

"Hostiles!" Alenko yells, jumping away from the stairs, to which he's closest.

"Where?" Liara asks, looking around frantically. She follows the direction of his gunfire and sees dozens of little green bugs skittering towards them. The ice and snow melts under their bodies.

"Everyone get back!" Shepard shouts, though most of them have already started backing up at the sight of the creatures. They aim their shots at the bugs, but not all of them are marksmen and the bugs are fast.

"Shepard," Tali calls worriedly, "quarians don't do well with toxic insects. We don't do well with toxic anything."

Shepard swears loudly. "Get behind me; I'll cover you. Liara, can you manage a singularity to vacuum these fuckers up?"

"Yes, but everyone will need to stand back," Liara replies, already swirling with blue energy.

"Everyone on me," Shepard orders, throwing up a weak barrier. They're nearly back to the door they came in from and don't have anywhere else to go. If Liara's singularity can't pull them in, there's no telling what damage the unknown creatures will do.

There's a sudden blast of energy and a dark mass effect field erupts in the center of the room, swirling violently and pulling everything within its gravity field into its center. Shepard strengthens her barrier as she feels the singularity's pull even from where she's standing. She'd underestimated Liara. Those bugs don't stand a chance. There's one final blast as the singularity implodes upon itself, and the only traces left of the bugs are steaming piles of snow where the sludge had landed.

"Damn," Ashley breathes as Shepard lets down her barrier, clearly impressed with Liara's power. "I didn't know you had it in you, Blue."

Liara smiles weakly. "I hope that we do not have to deal with any more of those—"

She's swiftly interrupted by an earsplitting shriek. At the top of the steps, a giant creature appears with equally giant, sharp feelers flailing around dangerously.

"Goddess," Liara whispers. "What is that?"

Wrex snarls. "Rachni."

"The rachni are supposed to be extinct," Tali says incredulously.

"Let's hope those little green bugs have got us hallucinating then," Alenko mutters.

The rachni lets out another loud wail before suddenly shooting a stream of thick green acid from one of its feelers. The acid flies towards Shepard, who doesn't even have time to react when she realizes what's happening. The green fluid is inches away from her facemask when Shepard is suddenly and painfully thrown aside by an enormous mass. Pain shoots through Shepard's shoulder where she'd previously been shot as the joint is thrown out of place, but any sounds of protest are drowned out by the sound of rapid gunfire and a very pissed off krogan in pain. There's a lot of shrieking from the rachni on top of it all, but Shepard's in too much pain to see what's happening. After several minutes of relentless gunfire, the shrieking stops and all is quiet once more.

"Shepard, are you alright?" Liara's voice cuts through the white haze in Shepard's head.

"Shoulder," she grits out roughly. "Dislocated."

"Shit," Garrus swears. "What about Wrex?"

"I'm fine," Wrex growls, as though he's offended that anyone would ask. "Damn thing only got my side. Let me see Shepard. I'll put her arm back where it belongs."

"On the other side of the room?" Ashley snipes. "We'll handle it, thanks."

"We need to get her armor off," Alenko says. "Can you sit up, Commander?"

"I'm not fucking paralyzed, Alenko," Shepard snarls. Still, she finds she can't fully sit up without Liara's help, unless she wants to fall back over and really injure herself. Ashley unlatches Shepard's armor and helps her take her arm out of it, with a great deal of swearing on Shepard's part.

"Ash, you hold her still," Alenko instructs, positioning himself so that he can get leverage on Shepard's shoulder. "Sorry, Commander. This is going to hurt."

"Just fucking—"

The rest of Shepard's sentence is cut off by a scream as Alenko forces the shoulder back into place. He grimaces at the sound, which is decidedly worse than twenty rachni screeching at once. He immediately has some medi-gel at the ready and administers it to lessen the pain. Shepard slumps back into Ashley as the energy flees from her body. Ashley holds her hands out awkwardly to brace herself against the ground as Shepard falls against her. She looks at Alenko frantically, completely caught off guard and at a loss for how to handle the situation. Shepard's eyes drift lazily up to Ashley's face.

"I'm aware that this is probably incredibly awkward for you, Williams, but you're going to have to deal with it for a minute while I work up the energy to kill the krogan," she says calmly.

Wrex snorts. "I saved your ass, Shepard. That acid would have burned a hole clear through your head. Would have been an improvement on your face, but then I'd be out of a job."

Garrus stifles a laugh and Shepard glares at him.

"I'll remember that when Benezia's ripping your limbs off with her biotics, Vakarian," she warns. Garrus settles on a smirk and Shepard finally rolls off of Ashley and pushes herself up to her feet.

"Are you done crying yet, Shepard?" Wrex asks impatiently. "The asari will be halfway across the galaxy by the time we get out of this room."

"You first," Shepard says, gesturing towards the stairs they have yet to ascend. "Wouldn't want to risk losing anyone important in case there are more rachni ahead."

xx

There are more rachni. By the time they make all of the necessary repairs to the facility and reach the tram, they've faced well over a dozen of them. The ride to the labs provides a much-needed reprieve from fighting. Shepard's shoulder is still throbbing from being shot and dislocated. Alenko had taken a shot of toxic sludge in the arm and sustained some nasty burns. Wrex is practically raging from the encounters with the rachni, which his people had supposedly eradicated so many years ago. He considers it a failure on his ancestors' parts for not ensuring that they were completely wiped out.

Liara is also growing increasingly agitated as they draw closer to the hot labs. She knows that they're coming very close to facing off with her mother, and she's terrified of what they'll find there. She's furious with Benezia for joining up with Saren and she'll demand answers when they finally come face to face. Shepard catches her eye from across the rail car and tries to convey her unspoken question. Liara understands. Shepard's asking if she'll be ready to do whatever it takes to succeed here. She takes a deep breath and nods in the commander's direction.

There are several holographic signs alerting them to the various places they can search, but the only door they currently have access to is an elevator to their left. They climb in and take it up.

"You really think Benezia's just waiting for us here in one of these labs?" Ashley asks.

"If there's something here that Saren needs, she won't leave without it," Garrus asserts.

"You're right though," Shepard says. "She definitely won't be unprepared. If she doesn't already know we're here, I'll punch Wrex in the face."

Wrex's response is a low growl. Shepard smirks and Garrus chuckles. Ashley shoots the krogan a wary glance, but he doesn't look any more pissed off than usual. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised by the fact that Shepard relates so easily to a krogan. Their personalities are scarily similar.

The elevator finally comes to a halt and Shepard readies her weapon in case there's an ambush ready for them on the other side. The doors slide open and the party comes face to face with a small squad of humans. All of them have their weapons trained on the elevator, but at the sight of humans, the man in the front lowers his.

"Hold your fire," he orders, and his team complies. Shepard lowers her weapon as well and strides forward. "Sorry for the unfriendly greeting, but we couldn't be sure of what the hell might be coming through those doors."

"Understandable," Shepard says wryly, taking the hand he offers her.

"I'm Captain Ventralis."

"Commander Shepard. What's the situation here?"

"Total shit, Commander," Ventralis says bluntly. "Those overgrown cockroaches have completely overrun the labs. We've lost a ton of people." Shepard nods grimly. "Can I ask what your business here is, Commander?"

"We're looking for the asari Matriarch," Shepard tells him. She tosses her head in Liara's direction. "Benezia's daughter is here with urgent information for her mother. We need to find her a.s.a.p."

Ventralis looks around Shepard to take in the odd makeup of her team. "Quite a guard she's got," he says skeptically. "Is that a quarian?"

Shepard shrugs. "Never know what obstacles you might face. Good to have all your bases covered."

Ventralis looks for a second like he isn't buying it, but his shoulders finally relax and he shrugs.

"Well, I can give you access to the hotlabs, Commander. The Matriarch is here somewhere doing research. I'd escort you myself, but we have to hold our position here in case any more of those monsters try to break through."

"I think we'll manage by ourselves," Shepard replies, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She doesn't trust this guy one bit.

"Alright, well—"

Ventralis is interrupted as the sound of clanging metal rings through the room. He holds up a hand to his team and raises his gun. As he does so, the vents on the floor burst open, knocking Tali and Alenko to the far side of the room as two rachni explode upwards and start attacking.

"Motherfuckers!" Ventralis yells, and Shepard silently agrees as she starts blasting her shotgun in their direction.

She shoots one directly in the mouth, effectively cutting off its high-pitched screech. It falls back into the vents with a heavy thump. She doesn't have time to celebrate her victory before the other rachni is shooting a stream of acid in her direction. Shepard dives out of the way, much to the dismay of the guard standing behind her, who takes the shot full force. He crumples to the floor in a slimy mess without much protest. The rachni pays with its life when Wrex blasts it apart with his own shotgun.

All is quiet for several moments while everyone catches their breath. Finally, Ventralis straightens and extends a keycard towards Shepard.

"This will get you into the hot labs. You should find what you're looking for there."

"Thanks," Shepard says, taking the card from his outstretched hand. She shoots a regretful look to the remains of the guard lying in a puddle on the floor before signaling her team to move out.

The scene they encounter in the labs has Shepard halting in her tracks the minute she steps off of the elevator. She's expecting to run headlong into Matriarch Benezia, backed by a team of hostile geth. What she gets is a ragtag group of doctors and civilians comprised of an asari, a salarian, and an elcor, of all things. Shepard raises an eyebrow at the group and shoots a sideways glance at Alenko, who merely shrugs.

As they move further into the room, Tali's eye immediately catches sight of a locked door with a guard standing by. She nudges Garrus and points his attention to it. He nods.

"I somehow doubt our keycard gives us access to that," he says quietly. Shepard grunts. There's no doubt in her mind that Ventralis and his men are protecting Benezia.

"Okay, everyone spread out and look around. Talk to some of these people and see what you can find out. Try to avoid conflict if possible. Liara, Williams, I want you two on me while we go check out whatever's down this hallway. Alenko, take someone with you to check out the other room down there."

Alenko nods and signals for Wrex to come with him. The two of them head off towards the far door while Shepard takes her team down the closest hallway, marked with a sign that tells them that it's a med bay. As they pass by, the asari standing against the wall turns her gaze toward them.

"What?" she snaps as Shepard looks at her. "Can't you see I'm trying to meditate?"

Shepard growls, but allows herself to be urged forward by Liara. The sound of the elcor's droning voice follows them down the hallway as Tali attempts to get information out of him.

The hallway does indeed lead to a med bay where they find a human doctor tending to a few patients, who look deathly ill.

"What's this?" he asks, looking up at the intrusion.

"I'm Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy," Shepard says. "I presume you're the doctor here."

"Dr. Zev Cohen," the man says in an irritated tone that Shepard does not appreciate in the least.

"What the hell is going on here, Doctor? These people look like they're on their last leg."

"They are. They've been infected with a toxin," Cohen tells her. There's a hesitation to his voice that suggests that there's more to it than that. Shepard rolls her eyes.

"Look, Doctor, I've been stonewalled and blue-balled since the second I stepped onto this useless iceberg of a planet and it's really starting to piss me off. If you have something else to say, you better say it before these people you're supposed to be helping drop dead of your indecision," she says.

"I have a non-disclosure agreement," Cohen says regretfully.

"Doctor, please. We can help you if you just tell us what is going on," Liara pleads. The doctor looks at her warily for a moment, but finally sighs and rubs his face tiredly.

"There was an accident. We were experimenting with a bio weapon developed from an exotic species found on the frontier. The facility's VI went offline in the middle of it and these people were infected."

Shepard scoffs. "Fucking great. You've got rachni running rampant around this place and now you're telling me we're all about to be infected by a bio weapon, which I take great pleasure in reminding you is fucking  _illegal_  according to the Citadel Council."

"The toxin is highly infectious, but it can't actually spread from person to person," Cohen assures her quickly. "We weren't anticipating the quarantine systems shutting down like they did."

"Is there a cure?" Liara asks, looking to the sickbeds with concern.

"Yes, but it's locked down in the quarantine labs, which I can't gain access to because Captain Ventralis is afraid the toxin might still be active," Cohen says with exasperation.

"Is it?" Ashley asks.

"No! The toxin becomes impotent once it's had enough exposure to the air. The lab is perfectly safe by now, but Ventralis won't believe me."

"You let me deal with Ventralis," Shepard syas. "I'll get you your cure, but I need you to do something for me." Dr. Cohen looks wary again. "Are you aware that the Matriarch Benezia is somewhere within these labs?"

"Yes," Cohen replies.

"Well my friend here needs to speak with her mother, the Matriarch. We need immediate access to those labs," Shepard tells him.

Dr. Cohen shakes his head. "You won't get in the front door. The Matriarch specifically instructed that the doors be locked down after she went through. No one is allowed in, not even Ventralis."

"Is there a back way in?" Shepard asks with growing irritation.

"I'm not sure. Look, please, just get me the cure. If you can do that, I'll be able to focus on finding a way to get you in to see the Matriarch," he pleads.

Shepard huffs. It's not the answer she wants, but she doesn't really see any other options unless she wants to storm her way through every guard in the labs. At this point, she's half considering it.

"Keep these people alive until I get back," she orders. Dr. Cohen looks relieved beyond belief.

"Thank you," he says gratefully. Shepard shoots him a glare and leaves.

xx

Getting Ventralis to give them access to the quarantine lab takes so little effort that Shepard is pissed she wastes the energy in walking back to him to ask for it. He seems more than happy to let her deal with the problem if she's willing, which makes her sick. People like that have no business being in command of anything.

The lower level of the labs offers just one more sight that Shepard isn't expecting: a sole volus standing in the center of the room, looking as though he wandered in by accident and can't remember how to leave. His enviro-suit shudders loudly each time he takes a breath and Shepard shoots him a skeptical glance as she passes by to speak with the turian guarding the door to the lab.

"This place is under quarantine," he says immediately upon her approach.

"No shit," Shepard barks. "Now let my people in there so we can grab the cure, under Captain Ventralis's orders."

The turian glowers at her for a moment before a voice comes over his comm piece, ordering him to let them in. He steps aside.

"Not my problem if you get infected," he mutters.

"Thanks for your support," Ashley says sarcastically.

Shepard and her squad step through the door and sweep the small room quickly.

"There's no cure here, Shepard, but there are instructions to make one," Tali says, holding up a data pad to show her.

Shepard swears under her breath. "Great, which one of you here is a medical doctor?"

"These instructions are very thorough. I can probably concoct the cure with their help," Tali muses.

"Do it. Liara will stay here and assist if needed. The rest of you, back outside. I have a gut feeling something's about to go to shit," Shepard says darkly.

As she says it, a gunshot rings out behind her. Shepard whips around to find the turian guard on the floor, blood seeping out of the bullet hole in his head. She has only a second to get out the way before the geth storming into the room take her out, too.

Garrus, Wrex, Ashley, and Alenko all fly out of the labs, guns at the ready. Alenko slams the panel on the wall to close the door so that Tali and Liara won't be harmed while working on the cure, before unloading his pistol into the nearest geth.

"I can't let you go any further, Shepard," a voice calls, and Shepard's attention is directed to the asari that she'd seen upstairs.

"I knew I didn't fucking like you," Shepard yells, aiming her shotgun at the asari's chest. She's stopped as a biotic force flies into her, throwing her aside and knocking her gun out of her hands. Ashley takes Shepard's place, spraying bullets at the asari. All of them deflect off of her barrier as she moves forward, reaching out to toss Ashley out of the way. She practically falls on top of Shepard, who has switched to her assault rifle by now. Shepard throws up her own barrier, one that protects both her and Ashley from the asari's next biotic attack.

"Hey!"

The asari turns at the voice that has suddenly appeared behind her. She has just enough time to register Garrus's expression before he pulls the trigger of his gun in her face. The asari drops without any further protest.

"Are you guys okay?" Alenko asks, extending a hand to help Ashley up.

"Fine," Ashley mutters, looking at the asari corpse with contempt.

Shepard gives Alenko a nod. "Should have shot that bitch when she looked at me funny," she says, nudging the asari with her boot to make sure she's dead.

A sound from her left has Shepard aiming her gun again, but she lowers it almost immediately when she sees the volus crawling out of his cover behind some crates.

"Wow, thanks for your help," she says sarcastically. The volus shrugs. "Did you see where they came from? They definitely didn't bring all of those geth in through the elevator."

The volus responds by pointing his finger towards a maintenance access door. Wrex ambles over to check it out.

"Locked," he grunts. Shepard rolls her eyes.

"Naturally."

The door to the quarantine lab hisses open behind her and Tali emerges with a vial in her hand, followed closely by Liara. The two of them stop dead in their tracks when they see the carnage in front of them.

"Those labs are incredibly soundproof," Liara says dryly. Shepard shakes her head.

"Let's get this cure to the doctor and get him to hold up his end of the bargain."

xx

Dr. Cohen is so grateful for their help that he immediately gives them his access code to enter the maintenance tunnels. Shepard swiftly leads her team back down and through the maintenance door. They encounter another rachni in the frozen tunnel, but other than that they find little resistance. And the tunnel takes them exactly to where they need to be.

Benezia barely even glances at them when they enter the room, guns trained directly on her. She's standing in front of a large glass tank. Inside is the largest rachni Shepard has seen yet. She only hopes that it stays in that tank.

Liara gasps at the sight of her mother standing in front of them as though everything about the situation is completely normal. She looks completely different from the last time that Liara had seen her. Gone is the warm, wise, comforting woman that Liara had spent her time with growing up on Thessia. Instead, she sees only a cold, commanding statue that she hardly recognizes.

"You do not know the privilege of being a mother," Benezia says finally, still staring at the queen rachni in front of her. Shepard can hardly reconcile the fact that this woman gave birth to the sweet, innocent girl that now stands beside her. "To be able to create life, to shape it into something so powerful and great… Her children were to be ours, to cut down Saren's enemies with ease." She turns toward them and levels Shepard with a cold stare. "Did you think that bringing my daughter with you would afford you some sort of advantage, Commander?"

"I am here because I want to be, Mother," Liara spits, and Shepard is impressed by her ire. Benezia sneers.

"Yes? And what have you told them about me, Liara?"

"What can I possibly say, Mother? That you're insane? I do not even know who you are anymore!" Liara cries.

"No matter," Benezia waves her off. "I will not be swayed. Have you ever faced an asari commando unit before, Shepard? Few humans have."

Shepard has no time for a response. Benezia has her trapped in a stasis field before she can draw a breath. The room fills with asari and geth fighters alike as she stands there, muscles burning with the effort of trying to break free. The field finally breaks loose, just in time for her to put up a barrier to stop the bullet that's whizzing toward her head.

The ensuing fight is a bloody mess. Wave after wave of asari commandos file into the room, taking shots and launching biotic attacks at Shepard and her team. Even though they're seven of the best fighters the galaxy has to offer, they have a tough time battling against such a force. Tali is incapacitated after a giant crate is lifted and thrown on top of her. Garrus takes a bullet to the leg and has to take cover in order to survive. Only Liara seems to be handling the situation with any sort of ease. Her biotics are impeccable, and her ire only fuels them more. Shepard sees asari after asari fly across the room in Liara's wake. The floor is soaked with purple blood. Shepard does her best to cover Liara from all of the gunfire, taking down at least a dozen commandos with her shotgun. Ashley and Alenko hold their own from behind cover. Wrex seems to actually be enjoying himself.

The last asari falls after Liara cracks her head open against a wall. Shepard is cautious about coming out of cover, lest Benezia level them all with some horrific attack. If Liara's that strong, Shepard can only imagine how powerful her mother is.

But the attack never comes. Finally poking her head around the corner of her cover, Shepard finds the Matriarch in front of the rachni tank. Benezia is struggling to hold herself upright against the tank and she seems to be having a hard time breathing. Liara walks towards her without hesitation, and Shepard follows.

"Listen," Benezia says heavily. "I do not have long. I can still hear Saren whispering in my mind. His will is impossible to resist."

"He's controlling you?" Shepard asks skeptically. "How?"

"I do not know exactly. The key is his flagship, Sovereign. It is a dreadnaught of incomprehensible size and power. While aboard it you become… powerless. A slave to Saren's will." Shepard's eyes narrow as she listens to Benezia explain. "I thought I was strong enough to resist, but soon my thoughts were no longer my own. I cannot… hold out much longer."

"Mother," Liara whispers. All the fight has gone out of her as she takes a step towards Benezia, concern shining in her eyes.

Benezia looks at her daughter with a sad, loving gaze. "You have always made me proud, Liara." She gasps suddenly and doubles over in pain. Liara whimpers quietly beside Shepard. "I must be quick. Saren is searching for the Mu Relay. I do not know what his exact purpose is with it, but he is having trouble finding it. The relay is cold, enveloped by a nebula somewhere, which makes it difficult to locate."

"And someone here knows how to find it?" Shepard asks.

"The rachni. They occupied that sector of space two thousand years ago. Their memories are passed down from mother to daughter. I extracted those memories from this queen. I was… not gentle," Benezia says regretfully.

Shepard glances at the rachni queen wailing woefully behind her. "If you're telling the truth, I need that information. You can still make this right."

"I… No! I can't! Saren's teeth are at my ear. I cannot fight any longer. I cannot…"

The change in her is instantaneous. Her eyes harden again and her body swirls with dark energy as she prepares a biotic attack that's sure to crush them. Shepard doesn't hesitate to fire her shotgun. It hits its mark in Benezia's abdomen and sends her sprawling to the ground with wheezing gasps.

"Mother!" Liara cries, falling to her knees at her mother's side. Benezia reaches out to caress her daughter's cheek with a bloody hand.

"It's alright, Liara. This is how it must be if I am to be free." She glances up at Shepard. "Stop Saren. Stop him before he destroys everything." Shepard can only nod as Benezia turns back to Liara. "I love you. I only wish…"

Her last words are cut off as her head lulls to the side and she falls into an endless sleep. Liara sobs, and the sound makes Shepard grimace and close her eyes against the scene. She steps toward the control panel of the tank, trying to make sense of what she should do now. She can hear the sound of Tali groaning as she comes back to consciousness. Ashley and Wrex ascend the stairs behind her.

"Shepard!" Ashley's voice rings out suddenly. Shepard whirls around, gun at the ready, to find a dead asari commando stumbling to her feet, looking at her with dead eyes.

"What the fuck?" Shepard whispers. Never in twenty-nine years has she witnessed the dead coming back to life. The asari makes no move to injure her. It seems enough of a struggle just to stay upright. Behind her, the rachni screeches loudly.

"This one serves as our voice," the asari says, though the voice is clearly not her own. It's deep, lilting and strange, multi-layered. "We cannot sing in these low spaces. Your music has no color."

Shepard's eyes are round as she stares at the asari in front of her, and then back at the rachni, which seems to be communicating with the asari. Or through her, at least.

"What the fuck is going on?" Shepard mutters. Ashley looks as though she's witnessing the opening of the gates of Hell.

"We are rachni," the asari continues. "We sing for the lost lives of our children. They were taken from us before we could teach them to sing. They live in silence, muted. They are lost. You must end their suffering."

"They were trying to use them as weapons," Shepard says.

"Yes. They will only do harm as they are. They have no hope," the rachni queen says.

"I'll get rid of them," Shepard promises, though not quite as harshly as she intends to.

"Thank you. Before you deal with our children, we stand before you. What fate will you choose for us?"

Shepard frowns, confused.

"Looks like acid tanks up there, Shepard," Wrex says, pointing. "Should be enough to turn that bitch into a protein shake."

"Seems wrong," Ashley murmurs, staring hard at the creature in the tank. "To just murder her when she's completely defenseless. She didn't have a choice here."

"Your companions hear the truth. Will you silence us to memory forever, or will you allow us the chance to compose anew?"

Shepard shakes her head. The fate of an entire species suddenly rests in her hands. It shouldn't be her choice to make. But the rachni were a dangerous race once, and there's no guarantee that they won't be again if she sets them free. If she lets the queen go, she runs the risk of allowing another war to start sometime in the future. She can't allow it.

"I can't," is all she says, reaching out to the control panel to activate the acid tanks.

"Shepard!" Liara calls from where she's still kneeling beside her mother. Shepard turns to look at her, blue eyes watery, tears streaked down her young face. "Please, Shepard. They made a mistake. Every race in the galaxy has. They deserve a chance to make it right." As she says this, she glances down at her mother's lifeless body.

Shepard exhales heavily. She chances a look at Ashley, whose brown eyes convey a call for compassion. Shepard isn't even sure she still knows what compassion is. With a final sigh, she turns back to the console and punches in a sequence.

"You're free," she says evenly, leveling the rachni with a heavy stare. "Do not fuck this up."

"Thank you, human. We will remember your mercy, and sing of it to our children. We will not fail again."

The tank rises and Shepard watches as the rachni skitters away with one final, piercing cry.


	10. Myth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** Mass Effect, its characters, quests, names, dialogue, and all other content are property of Bioware.
> 
>  **A/N:** This is a repost of an earlier attempt to novelize the game/series. My first attempt was abysmal, so I've come at it from a slightly different angle. I'll be changing and adding things as I see fit in order to make the story a bit more realistic and fix the things that I didn't like about the series. The main pairing is FemShep/Ashley, but I will be adding a bunch of other pairings as the series goes on.
> 
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title taken from Fall Out Boy's, "Of All the Gin Joints in All the World."

_if you built yourself a myth  
_ _you'd know just what to give  
_ _what comes after this  
_ _momentary bliss  
_ _the consequence  
_ _of what you do to me_

_help me to name it  
_ _help me to name it_

_Beach House, "Myth"_

xx

They blow the labs on Noveria to hell. Shepard can only hope she never sees a rachni again as long as she lives. She doesn't even bother patching the Council through when they get back to the ship. She already knows they're going to give her endless shit for releasing the rachni queen, and she definitely can't deal with that at the moment.

Dr. Chakwas is furious with the amount of injuries they'd sustained on Noveria. She runs back and forth from cot to cot, tending cuts, burns, fractures, and gunshot wounds, muttering about how reckless they all are and don't any of them know how to take cover? Shepard tells her she should just be happy that they're all on her tables instead of in coffins.

Shepard's biggest concern now is Liara. The girl has refused all medical treatment, opting instead to lock herself in the medical stockroom with no real signs of emerging. Despite the fact that she knows there was no other choice, Shepard feels truly awful for being the one to pull the final trigger on Benezia. No matter how much Liara claims to have come to peace with her mother before the battle, Shepard knows that it's still devastating. She decides to give Liara some time before barging in on her to apologize.

When she finally does emerge almost a full day later, Liara finds the ship mostly dark and quiet. Dr. Chakwas has apparently gone to bed for the night. Only Garrus is still in the med bay, fast asleep. His wounded leg is heavily wrapped.

She ventures out into the mess hall, where she finds Ashley nursing a cup of coffee. Ashley's head snaps up at the sound of her footsteps. She looks surprised, as if she'd forgotten that Liara was even on the ship.

"Blue," Ashley breathes, assessing Liara quickly. She looks okay for the most part. Sad, of course, but very composed. Ashley respects that.

"Hello, Chief Williams," Liara says politely.

Ashley takes a deep breath, inhaling the steam of her coffee. "Listen, Blue, I wanted to say that I'm sorry about your mom. It shouldn't have had to end like that. She deserved better than to become Saren's puppet."

The sincerity of Ashley's voice shakes Liara more than she's expecting. For as much as she apparently dislikes aliens, it seems that she's still capable of caring about their feelings, maybe even becoming friends with them if the nickname is any indication. Liara can't hide the waver in her voice when she responds.

"Thank you, Chief."

"Call me Ashley."

Liara stands stunned for a moment, before a small smile graces her lips.

"Very well. Have a good night, Ashley," she says.

Ashley grins. "You too, Blue."

Without really thinking, Liara allows her feet to carry her up past the CIC and into the cockpit. Joker is still awake and she finds herself wondering if he ever really sleeps. She slips into the co-pilot seat beside him and he turns to face her.

"How's it going, Doc?" he asks, tone as playful as ever. Liara finds it extremely comforting.

"I am well, Joker, thank you," she replies.

"Well you look like hell," Joker says bluntly. Liara glares at him, but he merely stares back, completely sincere. "When's the last time you ate or slept?"

She realizes very suddenly that he's actually concerned for her and not just being his usual abrasive self. It makes her soften.

"I do not know," she admits quietly.

Joker shakes his head. "No good, Doc. You've got to keep your strength up."

"Why is that?" she asks tiredly.

"Because if you let yourself waste away, it means your mom died for nothing," he says simply. Liara finds herself struck by surprise again. Joker shrugs. "Sorry I don't have anything prettier or more inspiring to say."

Liara shakes her head. "No. I think that was perfect." Joker grins and turns back to the controls.

"Want to learn how to fly a ship?"

xx

Shepard's in the cargo hold again. Ashley knows it even before the elevator has descended. She seems to have gained the ability to sense when Shepard's near, like some sort of radar. The commander's cleaning her guns again. Her head perks up the moment she hears the lift gate open.

"Williams," she greets, without even turning around to see who's actually there. Ashley finds it a bit unsettling. It seems the radar goes both ways.

"Commander," she replies, moving to take a seat beside Shepard. Shepard says nothing else, so Ashley sits in silence and watches her clean her guns for a while. "I talked to Liara."

Shepard's green eyes find hers very slowly. Ashley remembers when she'd first met the commander how scared she'd been to really look Shepard in the eye. Those green orbs are always such a blaze; swirling with secrets and stories she fears she'll never know. Now she holds Shepard's gaze unwaveringly. It gets easier with time.

"How is she?" Shepard asks quietly.

"Upset, obviously. But I think she'll be okay. She's surprisingly tough."

Shepard nods thoughtfully. "She is that." Ashley frowns at the serious expression on her face, but doesn't comment. After several moments, Shepard speaks again. "You know, I had a sister named Ashlee."

Ashley's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. For all the times they've spoken down here on this deck, Shepard has never once mentioned her family.

"She was so quiet and smart. Innocent, too. Every time my siblings and I would go out to get into some sort of trouble, Ashlee would always stay behind with her nose buried in some book or another. She would get this look in her eyes sometimes, and I couldn't help thinking that she must have known the secrets of the universe, and she was just waiting for the rest of the galaxy to get our heads out of our asses and catch up. Liara reminds me of her a lot."

"I'm sorry," Ashley says. "It must be difficult."

"Sometimes," Shepard replies. "Mostly it's kind of comforting. It's like I get a second chance at being a sister." She stalls and her expression turns dark. "I'm not as good at it as I used to be."

Ashley frowns as she tries to come up with a response to that, but there's only one thing on her mind. "I have a sister named Abby."

Shepard shoots her a look, and then her face breaks out in an unexpected grin. "You never told me that."

"Seemed weird," Ashley says with a shrug. "It's even weirder now that I know you had an Ashlee."

"Hmm," Shepard hums. "Maybe it's fate, Williams. Maybe you were meant to be on my ship no matter what."

"You don't believe in fate, Shepard," Ashley says skeptically.

"Of course I fucking don't," Shepard replies immediately. "But you do, don't you?"

"I believe in God," Ashley corrects. "I'm not sure if they're the same thing."

"Well if you find out, keep that shit to yourself. If someone or something is determining my course in life, I don't want to know about it. Might provoke me to do something stupid just to challenge their power."

Ashley smirks and shakes her head. "I can honestly say I've never met anyone quite like you, Commander. But I'm glad I got the opportunity."

"You'd better be. I can still drop your ass back off on Eden Prime," Shepard warns. Her smile is playful and dangerous, and it makes Ashley's breath catch in her chest.

"Understood, ma'am," she says dutifully. Shepard rolls her eyes.

"Shut the hell up, Williams; you're not a soldier right now. You're just as bad as Alenko. Now make yourself useful and start cleaning some guns."

xx

Garrus wakes to the sound of the med bay doors sliding open. He looks up to see Tali coming towards him. She hops up onto the cot beside him.

"How's your leg?" she asks, looking down at the appendage in question.

"Well, it certainly doesn't appreciate being shot," Garrus replies wryly, "but with enough medi-gel it's down to a dull throb." Tali chuckles. "Dr. Chakwas says I'm out of action for a while, though."

"That's probably best," Tali muses. "That asari commando unit put up one hell of a fight."

"Makes you wonder what other sorts of armies Saren has under his spell," Garrus says. "How are you doing? You took a nasty hit with that crate."

"Quarian enviro-suits are pretty durable, thankfully. I've got some bruises, but I'll be fine."

"I'm glad. I was… worried about you," Garrus admits stiltedly.

Tali feels herself blush hotly under her mask. "Me? I wasn't the one shot!"

Garrus chuckles. "At least I'm getting some action. It's more than I can say for my time at C-Sec."

"You didn't like your job?" Tali asks curiously.

"It was alright," Garrus shrugs. "I never really felt like I was doing any good there, though. At least with Shepard I can actually make a difference."

"I know what you mean. This Pilgrimage is certainly more exciting than I had ever imagined."

Garrus has half a mind to say something, to tell Tali that she shouldn't be risking her life on such a dangerous mission when she's on her Pilgrimage, but the door to the med bay opens again before he can get the words out.

"You still sitting on your lazy ass, Vakarian?" Shepard booms as she breezes in. "I told you the asari would tear it to pieces."

"I just figured it was up to me to show you what a real injury looks like after all that whining you did about your shoulder, Shepard," Garrus shoots back.

Shepard smirks. "I'll be sure to have the doctor alert me when you're ready to start walking around again so I can  _assist_  you with your physical therapy." Garrus barks out a laugh. "You're looking better, Tali."

"Yes, Shepard, I'm fine," Tali replies, amused at the bantering between the two soldiers.

"Glad to hear it." Shepard stalls and looks to the storage room door. "Is she in there?"

"I think so," Garrus says. "Haven't seen her myself, though."

Shepard frowns. "If you two will excuse me, then."

They both nod and Shepard enters the storage room. Liara is sitting at her desk. She looks to be doing research as usual, but she turns at Shepard's entrance.

"Hey, kid," Shepard greets softly. Liara offers her a small smile.

"Good morning, Shepard. How are you feeling?"

Shepard shrugs. "I've had worse injuries than a dislocated shoulder before, and it's not the first time I've been shot. I think I'll probably survive."

"I am glad," Liara says. Shepard is silent. She looks at the asari before her with an expression of intense indecision. "I know what you are here to discuss, Shepard."

Shepard nods. "I'm sorry," she says gravely.

"I know," Liara assures her. "I do not blame you for what happened. You did what was necessary."

"Still, I… I shouldn't have brought you on that mission. It wasn't right."

"I wanted to be there," Liara insists, standing to face Shepard fully. "It was… comforting, to get the chance to see my mother as her former self, if only for a moment."

Shepard still doesn't look convinced, and the look of remorse on her face is painful. Liara isn't accustomed to the proper human protocols for a situation like this, but it feels natural to place her hand on Shepard's arm, so she does.

"I am fine, Shepard. I promise," she says firmly. Shepard searches her wide blue eyes for several moments before nodding.

"I'd like to keep you aboard until we stop Saren," she says finally. "I think it'll be safer for you and you're a hell of an asset in battle. And… well, I like having you here." Shepard clears her throat uncomfortably at the admission.

"I would like that very much," Liara says with a smile.

Shepard grins. "Good. Besides, I think Joker's becoming fond of you. Anything that keeps him from being any more of a pain in my ass than he is already is a necessity."

Liara blushes slightly. "I enjoy his company as well. He attempted to teach me how to fly. I do not think I have a future in it."

"So I hear," Shepard says with a laugh. "Stick to your strengths, kid."

"I am still older than you, Shepard," Liara says indignantly, though she appreciates the camaraderie.

"Yeah, well you're still a kid to me," Shepard replies. "A scary, powerful kid when you're pissed off, but a kid nonetheless." Liara smiles shyly and Shepard squeezes her shoulder briefly. "I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, Shepard," Liara says as she leaves.

xx

By the time dinner rolls around, Shepard has received an urgent transmission from Admiral Kahoku requesting that she investigate the disappearance of his team.

"Last I heard, they had intercepted a distress signal and were headed for Edolus. I haven't been able to contact them since, and I'm unable to go looking for them myself."

"I'll check it out for you, Admiral," Shepard assures him.

"Much appreciated, Commander. Let me know what you find. Kahoku out."

Shepard looks down at Joker, who's in the pilot's seat beside her. "Plot a course for Edolus, Joker."

"Aye, aye, Commander," he says. "Should take about four hours to get there."

"Do you think something bad happened to them?" Liara asks. She's taken to spending her free time in the co-pilot's seat.

"Hard to say," Shepard replies.

"Maybe they had to make an emergency landing and lost communications," Joker speculates.

"Let's hope that's all it is," Shepard says, turning back towards the CIC. "You two should come down to the mess for dinner while we still have time."

xx

Joker is spot on with his time estimate, and four hours later they're nearing the planet Edolus.

"Hey, Commander, I think we're picking up that distress signal the Admiral was talking about," Joker says over the comm.

"Shouldn't that have been deactivated by now if Kahoku's team responded?" Alenko asks from his station.

"Yes," Shepard says with a frown. "Take us in quiet, Joker. We'll take the Mako."

"Aye, aye."

"Let's go, Alenko," Shepard orders. Alenko is hot on her heels as she takes the lift down to the cargo bay. "Williams, suit up. You too, Wrex. We're going down to check on this signal."

Wrex grunts and begins checking over his shotgun. Ashley salutes, heading to the storage lockers with Alenko to get ready. A few minutes later, they're powering up the Mako as Joker brings them to their drop point.

"What do you expect we'll find, Commander?" Ashley asks as Alenko guides the vehicle over rocky terrain.

"I  _hope_  we'll find a malfunctioning distress signal that some lazy bastard forgot to turn off," Shepard replies. "I  _think_  we'll find a squad of dead marines."

Ashley grimaces.

"We're nearing the coordinates of the beacon," Alenko announces.

"I don't see anything," Wrex grouses.

"No, wait, I think I see the beacon out there," Ashley says. "There's nothing around it, though. No debris or anything. It's like someone dropped it in the middle of nowhere and turned it on."

"That's exactly what they did," Shepard confirms as the first body comes into view. "Hold it here, Alenko."

The Mako comes to a halt just in front of the body. Shepard climbs out first, followed by Ashley and Wrex. She looks down at the body, which is unrecognizable, but the uniform it's wearing is unmistakable.

"More bodies over there, Shepard," Wrex says, directing her attention to two more dead marines in the distance.

"Go check it out, see if you can find anything," Shepard says. He nods and ambles off.

"He's been totally mutilated," Ashley says with disgust. "What the hell did this?"

Shepard can name at least twenty different creatures that could be capable of something like this, but she doesn't care to speculate at the moment.

"Look for something useful here while I go disable that beacon," she tells the chief. "Wrex, what did you find?"

"Nothing but a pile of leftovers," he says over the comm. "Only one thing I know of that leaves bodies like this, Shepard. Thresher maw."

"Alright, everyone stay alert. If it is a maw, there's a good chance it didn't stray too far from its last kill. Wrex, retrieve the dog tags off of those soldiers so they can be sent back to their families. Same goes for you, Williams."

Shepard begins the simple work of deactivating the distress signal over the sound of Ashley's murmured acknowledgement. After a few seconds of fiddling with the control panel, the circuits pop and fizzle out. The beacon stills.

"Signal's down, Commander," Alenko tells her.

"Copy that, Alenko."

She begins walking back towards the Mako, but stops once she feels the ground start to rumble beneath her feet.

"Commander?" Ashley asks uncertainly.

"I felt it. Everyone stay fucking still," she orders through gritted teeth.

The rumbling returns, closer this time. The earth is shaking hard enough that it takes a great deal of effort just to stay upright. Suddenly, the ground breaks open about thirty yards away from them and a monstrous thresher maw shoots upwards with a furious roar.

"Holy shit," Ashley breathes.

"Everyone get back to the fucking Mako now!" Shepard bellows, sprinting towards the vehicle. Ashley and Wrex are already in by the time she reaches it and she tosses herself in unceremoniously. "Drive, Alenko!"

The Mako jolts forward, throwing them off balance. The thresher maw is making a ton of noise. It rears its head back and launches a huge stream of acidic spit at them.

"We're going to take a hit, Shepard," Wrex growls.

"Everyone brace yourselves," Shepard yells as the acid slams into the Mako, shaking it violently and causing the systems to flicker.

"Shields are down, Commander," Ashley announces.

"Push forward, Alenko, as hard as this piece of shit can handle. Wrex, shoot that motherfucker. Joker, come in."

"Here, Commander," Joker responds. "What the hell is going on down there?"

"We're being attacked by a thresher maw. We need immediate extraction," Shepard says.

"Aye, aye, Commander. We're on our way."

Wrex is happily firing off rockets at the thresher maw behind them. The creature takes a few hits and screeches before diving under the ground.

"Is it dead?" Ashley asks hopefully.

"No," Wrex and Shepard say in unison.

The ground explodes almost directly in front of them. Alenko pulls the Mako to the right as hard as he can, almost causing the vehicle to roll as it rocks unsteadily on its wheels. The thresher maw opens its giant mouth to spit at them again. Shepard aims the turret and sprays at least a hundred bullets down its throat. The maw chokes on the attack and staggers a bit.

"Hit it with everything you've got, Wrex."

"My pleasure," Wrex says with a toothy grin, unleashing four more rockets directly at the thing's head. Its deafening roar dies out quite suddenly, and it falls on its side, smashing to the ground in a pile of smoking meat and acid. Wrex laughs loudly at his victory while the others attempt to calm the adrenalin coursing through their veins.

"Fucking psychotic lizard," Shepard mutters, rolling her eyes at the krogan.

The Normandy appears out of the sky and swoops down to pick them up.

xx

Shepard has the distinct displeasure of informing Kahoku that his team is dead.

"I feared as much," he says grimly. "What was it?"

"Thresher maw, sir. It looked like the distress beacon was placed right in the middle of its nest in order to lure them there," Shepard replies. Kahoku looks thoughtful, but doesn't respond. "We recovered the soldiers' tags. I'll have them sent to you next time we dock."

"Thank you, Commander. I'll be in touch. Kahoku out."

Shepard sighs and walks out of the comm room. She's ordered her squad to get some much-needed sleep after the run in with the thresher maw. Most of the crew is also readying themselves for bed while the night shift prepares to take over. All is quiet.

She steps up to the galaxy map and navigates to the Attican Traverse without really thinking. Within seconds, the image of a small, brownish planet fills the map. Shepard has spent so many nights standing in front of this image, staring at it relentlessly while she thinks about things, that she knows every feature on its surface. She can pinpoint every valley, every lake and plantation field. It keeps her grounded when she's feeling like too many things are getting out of control. She stares at it now as she considers the lives of the soldiers they found on Edolus this evening. She's so lost in thought that she doesn't even notice someone hovering behind her.

"Skipper?"

Shepard's head turns at the sound of Ashley's voice.

"Williams. You need something?"

Ashley hesitates. "I… no, not really, ma'am. I was just thinking."

Shepard raises an eyebrow when nothing more is forthcoming. "Did you care to share those thoughts, or did you just want to assure me that you actually have a brain?" she asks, but there's no malice behind it.

"Somebody set those soldiers up," Ashley says, taking a deep breath. "They purposely lured them out there so that they would be attacked by that thresher maw."

"Yes," Shepard nods simply.

"Who would do that?" Ashley asks angrily. Shepard is silent for a moment.

"Come up here, Williams," she says finally, moving over slightly so that Ashley can stand next to her in front of the map. Ashley frowns, but does as she's told. They stand shoulder to shoulder, facing the map. Shepard points at the planet in front of them. "You know what that is?" Ashley shakes her head.

"No, ma'am."

"It's Mindoir," Shepard tells her. She watches the realization spark in Ashley's eyes. "This," she says, pointing to a spot in the southern hemisphere of the planet, "is where I was born. My father owned a hardware store. My mother sold strawberries. I had five siblings, but I never met a single person on the colony that I wouldn't consider to be family. Everyone helped each other out." Ashley swallows thickly. She's not really sure why Shepard is telling her this, but she's hanging on to every word like it's her lifeline. "We were outside playing tackle-ball when the batarians came. Me, Grace, Billy, Brian, my sister's boyfriend Jason, and a few other kids from down the street. Ashlee was inside reading, as usual. Laura was helping our mother make strawberry shortcake. Daddy was reading the news."

"Shepard," Ashley whispers, but she doesn't really know what to say. What  _can_  she say? Shepard's green eyes are boring into hers and it makes her feel like she can't breathe.

"That's what the batarians attacked, Ashley," Shepard continues. The sound of her first name coming out of Shepard's mouth nearly makes her heart stop for reasons she can't even begin to describe. "They attacked a bunch of kids playing outside in the summer heat. They attacked honest people doing hard work. They attacked mothers baking desert with their daughters."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ashley asks hoarsely.

"Because those marines we found today are no different from my family and friends on Mindoir," Shepard replies. "They were just going about their own business, trying to help someone who might be in trouble, and they got killed for it. People don't need a reason to kill other people. All they need are people to kill, and the means to do it. I think you saw enough of that on Eden Prime to understand what I'm saying."

Ashley nods slowly and turns back to the map.

"Have you been back since?"

"Yes. After Torfan, I went back to try to make peace," Shepard says. "But nothing was the same. I didn't even recognize it. I didn't recognize  _me_."

Ashley isn't sure how far she can take this before Shepard shuts her out again, but she doesn't want to waste the opportunity.

"Did it help, taking out the batarians on Torfan?" she asks cautiously.

Shepard shakes her head. "It made me want to go out and hunt down more batarians, until there wasn't a single one of them left in the galaxy. And it didn't bring my family back." She reaches out and clears the galaxy map to its original position. "Get some sleep, Ashley. I have a feeling the opportunities for it are going to become increasingly scarce."

Ashley salutes. "Goodnight, Skipper."

"Goodnight, Ash."

xx

"You need to get to Feros, Shepard," Anderson says over the comm link the next morning. "The geth are hitting it hard."

"What could Saren possibly want with another human colony?" Shepard asks angrily. "Is there another beacon there?"

"Not that we know of," Anderson replies. "ExoGeni has a fairly large research lab there, though."

"You think they have something there? Some kind of research or experiment involving the Reapers?"

"Hard to say, but if there is something there that Saren wants, you need to find it, Shepard. If he gets one more step ahead of us, we're out of this game," he says gravely. "You need to get in there a.s.a.p. before Feros ends up just like Eden Prime."

"That's not going to happen, sir," Shepard promises. "I'll have Joker plot a course immediately."

"Get it done, Shepard," Anderson orders. Shepard salutes and he cuts the link.

She turns and strides out of the comm room, almost running into Garrus in the process as he hobbles towards her.

"Shepard," he says, leaning onto the wall for support.

"Praying mantis," she greets, stopping to appraise him.

"Funny," he smirks. "You've got a look. Where are we headed?"

"Feros," she answers seriously.

"The human colony? What's happening there?" he asks with confusion.

"The geth are ripping it apart. There's obviously something there that Saren wants, and we need to figure out what it is."

"I want to go with you," Garrus says.

Shepard raises an eyebrow and looks down at his injured leg. "And what does the doc have to say about that?"

"I'm fine, Shepard," he insists.

"You can barely walk on those chicken legs," she says skeptically. "The geth are going to tear you to pieces, and you're no good to me dead."

"I can't spend one more day on this ship. I'm going crazy sitting around all the time," Garrus says desperately. Shepard sighs.

"Look, we'll scope out the situation when we get there. If it doesn't look too bad, I'll try to find you something to do," she says.

"Thanks, Shepard," he says with relief.

Shepard rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Now get out of here. It's getting too hard for me to resist finding out how much force it would take to topple you over like Humpty Dumpty." Garrus stares at her with vacant eyes. "It's a human nursery rhyme… never mind," she mutters, stomping off towards the cockpit.

"Hello, Shepard," Liara greets her happily from the co-pilot's seat. "Would you like to plot a course to our next destination?"

Shepard's eyebrows fly into her hairline. "Are you off duty or something?" she asks Joker. "Or should I just start coming to Liara from now on whenever we need to go somewhere? I'd be more than happy to replace you with her."

"Oh come on, Commander, you know you'd miss my charming personality," Joker says playfully.

"Charming isn't the word I'd use to describe it. Once you two are done figuring out whose job it is to fly the ship, plot a course for Feros. We need to be there yesterday."

"Aye, aye, Commander. Plotting the course now. We'll be there this afternoon."

"Good. Kid, I want you with me," Shepard instructs. "If you can manage to pull yourself away from Joker's 'charming personality,' that is."

Liara's blush is immediate. Shepard smirks and leaves.

xx

Feros looks almost worse than Eden Prime, in Shepard's opinion. As they fly in, she can see that most of the colony is in ruins, overrun by geth troops and dreadnoughts. There's no one even available to answer their hails, so she instructs Joker to dock at the nearest port where the geth forces are heaviest. It's a safe bet that whatever Saren wants will be there.

As the squad exits the  _Normandy_ , they're met by a single dark-skinned human. He's obviously unarmed, and Shepard signals for everyone to lower their weapons.

"We saw your ship coming in," the man says. "Fai Dan wants to speak with you."

"Who the hell is Fai Dan?" Shepard barks.

"He's the leader of Zhu's Hope. You'd better go speak with him so you can—argh!"

The man is gunned down before he can finish his sentence. Two geth storm around the corner, but they're no match for Shepard's entire squad, who fire on sight.

"Alright everyone, stay close and stay alert," Shepard orders. "I'm sure there are more where that came from. Let's go find this Fai Dan and figure out what the fuck is going on around here."

It's easier said than done. Once they find Fai Dan, they're interrupted by another geth attack up in the tower, which takes some time to repel. When that's finally dealt with, Fai Dan informs them that most of the geth forces are coming from the ExoGeni headquarters across the bridge.

"Williams and Tali will come with me to the ExoGeni tower. We'll get rid of the geth drop ship there. The rest of you will stay here and defend the colonists against any other attacks. In the meantime, help them make any necessary repairs and gather supplies. Alenko, you're in charge," Shepard says.

Alenko salutes. Shepard motions for Ashley and Tali to follow her up to the bridge.

xx

Two hours later, Shepard and her team have managed to get rid of the geth. They have an even bigger problem on their hands now, however. Shepard doesn't know what the hell a Thorian is, but it has control of the colonists and it's turned them against her. She can only imagine what they've done to the rest of her squad back at Zhu's Hope. They've been careful to use the anti-Thorian grenades so far, but they're quickly running out. After that, she won't have much of a choice about whether or not she spares the colonists.

"We'll save as many as we can," she says, distributing the rest of the grenades equally between herself, Ashley, and Tali as they come into the camp proper. "After that, it's survival of the fittest. And if they threaten the rest of the team, you shoot to kill."

Once Ashley and Tali have confirmed their understanding, they begin their assault. In the end, only five colonists have to die, including Fai Dan, who sacrifices himself in order to save them. They find the others knocked unconscious inside of  _The Borealis_.

"How the hell did they manage to knock out a krogan battle master without losing half of the colonists?" Ashley mutters, squatting down next to Wrex to dispense some medi-gel.

"I don't know, but you can be damn sure I won't ever let him live this one down," Shepard replies.

"Commander?"

Alenko groans and his eyes flicker open. He tries to sit up, but Shepard stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Easy, LT," she says. Liara and Garrus are also beginning to stir. "One of you want to tell us what the hell happened here?"

"The colonists ambushed us," Alenko explains. He tries to sit up again. Shepard lets him this time, helping him lean against the wall. "I was down in the tunnels trying to fix the water pumps. Liara and Wrex were trying to find food and power cells. There were geth down there, but it wasn't too hard to get rid of them all. We left Garrus up here with the colonists, in case there was another attack. I figured he could get to cover and use his sniper without damaging his leg any further. When we came back up, he wasn't around. Didn't think anything of it. Figured he was off helping someone out. But when I went back to Macha to make sure the water was working again, she attacked me. Hit me over the head with something."

"They weren't themselves. They started acting really strange, like they couldn't think straight," Garrus supplies.

"They were being controlled by some creature that lives under the colony," Tali says. "Something called a Thorian."

"Yeah, and we had to kill five colonists because of it," Shepard says darkly. "So now we're going to go find this Thorian and return the favor."

She helps Alenko stand up and then walks around to Wrex, who's still knocked out.

"Get up, princess!" she barks, giving him a swift kick in the quad. Wrex sits up immediately with a vicious growl.

"I'm going to kill those colonists," he roars.

"You're a little late to the party," Ashley says.

"I can't believe you let a bunch of human civilians take you down," Shepard says with a smirk.

"One of them injected me with something. That dirty little salarian! I'll crush its skull with my bare hands."

Shepard rolls her eyes. "Get your pansy ass up and let's go. We've got a Thorian to kill."

Wrex snarls and stands up. He looks a little unsteady at first, but he seems to be able to shake it off with little effort. Tali finds a pile of their weapons in a corner nearby and starts handing them out. Shepard takes Wrex's shotgun from her and tosses it to him.

"Wrex and Williams, come with me so we can see about this creature. Tali, you help the others back to the ship and get Dr. Chakwas to look at them. Vakarian, keep your ass in the med bay until I get back. You've had enough action for today."

They exit the ship to see that the surviving colonists are still unconscious. Shepard spots a control panel nearby and activates it. A large tank is lifted off the ground, revealing a set of stairs that leads underground somewhere.

"Guess we found out where the Thorian's hiding," Ashley muses. Shepard grunts in agreement and leads them down the stairs.

There's a long, dark tunnel that forces them to turn their flashlights on. It opens up into a cavernous room, and Shepard suddenly realizes that the Thorian isn't like any sort of plant she's ever seen in her life.

It's enormous—at least twenty feet tall and taking up almost the entire girth of the cylindrical chamber it resides in. It's suspended in mid-air, holding itself up with vines as thick as tree trunks that are attached to the walls surrounding them. The most disturbing thing is that it's  _breathing_ , or engaging in some act that mimics respiration, and dripping some sort of viscous green fluid from what Shepard can only guess is supposed to be its mouth.

"Jesus," Ashley whispers as they approach, almost lowering her weapon in her awe. Shepard silently agrees, but they need to stay alert if they're going to make it out of this one alive. She nudges Ashley's weapon back into position with the barrel of her own. Not that a spray of bullets will probably help them out very much against this thing, she thinks grimly.

Without warning, the mouth of the Thorian contracts and, much to their combined disbelief, spits out an entire asari. A  _green_  asari.

"Invaders!" she barks, and it isn't nearly the same as when the rachni queen had taken control of the asari body. Still, Shepard's quickly tiring of alien life forms taking control of others. "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"

"The only thing I'm in awe of is the fact that no one has doused your ugly ass with pesticide yet," Shepard snaps. "You have a lot to answer for, Thorian."

"The Old Growth answers to no one, human. It will ingest you as worm food," the asari proclaims, just before pulling out an assault rifle.

Shepard throws out a biotic barrier in order to block the bullets and give her team time to scatter into cover. This asari is just as powerful as any one of Benezia's commandos, and she keeps lobbing powerful biotic attacks in Shepard's direction, interspersed with gunfire.

Wrex and Ashley are busy dealing with the hoard of Thorian creepers that have come seemingly out of nowhere. Wrex is positively covered in toxic green guts by this point, but luckily his armor and thick skin are protecting him from any adverse effects. Ashley, on the other hand, constantly has to dive back into cover in order to avoid the poisonous vomit that the things kept spraying everywhere. Luckily, they're stupid and slightly slower than normal enemies, which makes it a lot easier to dispatch them from a distance with her rifle.

After being knocked on her ass by a particularly powerful warp field that makes her head feel like it's being ripped apart at the seams, Shepard finally uses as much energy as she can muster to charge the asari, blasting a couple of shotgun rounds into her chest. She finally falls to the ground in a heap.

"We need to figure out a way to get rid of this fucking thing," Shepard pants as she regroups with Ashley and Wrex, "otherwise it'll just enslave the colonists again as soon as we leave."

"Well I'm pretty sure we could each fire all the ammo we have into that thing and it wouldn't even make a dent," Ashley says.

"No," Wrex agrees, peering over the ledge that the Thorian is suspended above and seeing nothing but black, "but I bet it would splatter just like a bug if it ever found the bottom of this pit."

He looks over his shoulder and spots one of the arms of the Thorian attached to the wall just up the ramp. Walking over to it, he starts shooting at the arm with his gun. After several rounds, the thing finally gives way and falls limply to the Thorian's side while the creature squeals in outrage.

"New mission objective: destroy every one of this thing's supports until falls," Shepard orders, running up the ramp. She's just barely made it to the second landing when she's thrown backwards by another biotic blast. She shakes her head to try to straighten out her vision, and looks up to find an exact copy of the asari she'd killed only minutes before. "Oh shit."

xx

It turns out that the Thorian can reproduce as many copies of that asari as it needs, which only makes it that much harder for the three of them to destroy its supports. They manage, finally, after much struggle and nearly losing Ashley over the edge of the pit. Shepard is never so satisfied as when she watches the Thorian disappear into the blackness below them. They descend down the ramps to the bottom of the complex to find the same asari waiting for them, proper blue this time and looking a little sick.

"You freed me," she breathes, holding a hand to her stomach as though she' in pain. "I—thank you."

"Don't be so hasty to thank me," Shepard growls, gun trained on the asari. "I haven't decided if I'm going to let you live yet. You'd better start talking so we can find out."

The asari looks wary, but nods anyway.

"My name is Shiala. I follow…  _followed_  Matriarch Benezia. When she aligned with Saren, so did I."

"Why did she do it? Why did she join Saren?" Shepard asks. It isn't that she particularly cares for her own sake, but it might be something that Liara would like to know in the future.

"Matriarch Benezia foresaw that Saren would be entangled in certain destructive events. She sought to guide him away from this path. But we underestimated him," Shiala says wearily. "His ship is capable of devastating mind control. By the time Saren brought me to this planet, I was a willing slave."

"What was he doing here? What did he want with the Thorian?"

"He wanted to make a deal with it. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Old—with the Thorian. It had a Cipher that he needed in order to make sense of the images given to him by the Prothean beacon. He traded me in exchange for the information," Shiala explains.

"Wait, back up," Shepard interrupts. "What Cipher?"

Shiala is being very patient for her part, but then again Shepard's pretty sure she lacks the energy to argue or fight with them.

"The beacon that both you and Saren interacted with on Eden Prime was not meant for use by non-Prothean races. In order to understand the information it contains, one must understand the Protheans—their language, their culture… their entire existence."

"And the Thorian had all of this?" Ashley asks skeptically.

"The Thorian has been around for thousands of years. It has seen the coming and going of the Protheans, studied them from the darkness as it studies our races now," Shiala says.

"And so once Saren got what he needed, he sent his geth here to try to destroy the Thorian," Shepard guesses. "Slimy prick."

"Saren knows that you are after the Conduit. He knows that you follow wherever he goes. He did not want to leave the Thorian as a loose end."

"He didn't," Shepard says, glancing into the pit below them. "But he did leave you. I need that Cipher."

Even as she says it, she's well aware that it isn't something that can simply be told or explained. If that were the case, Saren would never have needed to bring Shiala along. No, this is going to be a process similar to what she'd done with Liara before, though probably considerably more painful since Shiala is going to inject her brain with more Prothean trash. The last thing she wants is to have someone else poking around in her brain, but if she's going to have any hope of stopping Saren, she'll need to know everything that he knows.

"Try to relax, Commander," Shiala instructs, and then she's no longer alone within her own mind.

She sees flashes of things, of a thousand years' worth of culture, at least. She feels the entirety of a people melding and melting into her mind, inserting themselves into the dark spaces of her brain where she may never see them again, or only see them when she least expects it. It's over in a second, though it feels like an eternity or more. When she opens her eyes, she finds Shiala staring back at her, looking even weaker than before, but satisfied that the job is done. It isn't as painful as Shepard thought it might be, but she still doesn't understand any more than she had before.

"Are you alright, Skipper?" Ashley asks with concern. "You look like you're going to be sick."

"Fine," Shepard says lowly, waving her off. That isn't entirely true. It does feel like she's going to heave up her entire last meal at any second.

"It is not an easy process, but it was the only way," Shiala explains. "You now have the Cipher just as it was given to Saren. It will take some time, but eventually you will understand the message delivered to you in the beacon as you grow to understand lessons that you were taught as a child and could not yet fully grasp."

"Thanks," Shepard mutters with as much sarcasm as she can muster. It's hardly any at all. "We can't stay here any longer, not while Saren is still searching for the Conduit."

"I wish you good luck, but you must stop him," Shiala says. "As for me, I would stay here with the colonists if I may. I wish to undo the wrongs that I have helped bring upon them."

"Then I guess you'll have to take that up with them," Shepard says. "They need someone to help them get back on their feet and fight with them in case anything else tries to come back and finish the job Saren started here. You deserve whatever fate they bestow upon you."

Shiala nods, but says nothing further. Shepard turns to her squad and motions for them to head back the way they came, out into the light of the colony once more.


End file.
